Antithesis
by gkkstitch
Summary: What if you lost your heart's perfect match? Edward knows someone who is living his worst nightmare, who has vowed that Edward and Bella will never suffer that heartache, even if the Volturi may be the source of that threat.
1. Chapter 1 Salutations

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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**Antithesis, Part 1**

_If Edward and Bella's story is a story of love found, what would it look like to have lost your heart's perfect match? How would it break you and leave you shattered into pieces in what remains of your life? "Antithesis" takes place at the end of "Twilight" as Bella recovers from her injuries, and is a story of love lost. Edward knows someone who is living his worst nightmare. _

§∞•••∞§

I sat next to Edward, surrounded by his family, and blinked as reality hit me once again. Every once in a while I tried to have this reality check. I stepped outside of the situation for a moment and tried to think of the past two weeks in an objective manner, and – as long as you didn't think about it too hard – it was all quite simple.

If you're going to have your leg broken by a vampire who stalks you to Phoenix Arizona and tries to kill you and your boyfriend for a thrill, make sure you have a vampire doctor who doesn't mind making house calls… in his own home.

I looked down to hide the ironic smirk before I could be questioned about it, glad for the millionth time that Edward couldn't read my mind.

There was a sudden knock at the door that made everyone stare, frozen for a moment, then they turned in unison to all look the same question at Alice. I could see that very same question on her own face.

Who was it, and why hadn't she known they were coming?

It was my first time out of Charlie's house since we returned from Phoenix. My crutches were on the floor at my side, but I never had to use them when Edward was near.

Carlisle looked across the room at us. Specifically, he was looking at Edward. I looked up into Edward's face and saw the same tension in his eyes as Alice's.

Who could be out there? How could they be invisible to both Edward _and_ Alice?

The knock at the door returned in the staccato of shave-and-a-haircut.

A _playful_ mysterious threat?

"You guys know you suck at hiding out in a house with glass walls, right?" asked a sardonic voice.

"Rolle?" Esme whispered.

"Yeah."

No one moved. I looked around the room at the Cullen family not understanding the sudden chill in the air. Carlisle went to the door as Edward angled himself in front of me.

The door swung open and Carlisle stepped back to allow the visitor in. He could have been Jasper's twin brother: tall, blonde, well-proportioned. His face was more angular than Jasper's and even though he was smiling it never reached his eyes.

"Hiya, Doc," came the slow greeting. There was something warm but sad in his voice.

"Hello, Rolle," Carlisle responded in kind.

Rolle took a half-step to Carlisle and embraced him fondly.

His gaze went to Esme next and his smile warmed again -- almost touching his eyes though not quite -- as he went past Carlisle and took her hands.

"Welcome back, Rolle dear," she said, her voice lightly colored by the tension she was trying to hide. Rolle stepped toward her and kissed her on one cheek, then the other.

"Rolle," Emmett greeted next with a wide smile.

Rolle released Esme and clasped Emmett's hand in an arm-wrestler's grip. They leaned forward and bumped shoulders.

"Rose," Rolle whispered next, taking one of Rosalie's hands in both of his. He raised it to his lips and pressed a kiss to her fingers.

Jasper came forward next and reached for Rolle's hand. As they shook hands, their other hands came up to grasp each other's arms above the wrist.

Edward moved to block me from view again. Now I was totally confused. Their greetings were warm and cordial, so why was there so much tension in the air?

I leaned further around Edward to watch the stranger's behavior. Rolle seemed to have a different way of greeting each of them. As I tried to watch, Emmett suddenly stepped in my line of view. I tried to look around him as well, and realized Esme was also now standing in the way. I was disappointed to hear Rolle say, 'Hey, Squirt,' to Alice and not know what her unique greeting was.

As I began to wonder how he would greet Edward I realized the Cullen's had all moved to shield me from their guest.

Apparently, Rolle noticed this as well.

"What's going on?" he asked, puzzled. "Why are... " His voice trailed off as he stepped across the room and saw me gazing curiously back at him.

Now that he was closer I could see his differences more clearly. His shape and stature was like Jasper, but everything else about him was paler. Where Jasper's hair was blonde, Rolle's was a platinum blonde. Even his eyes were paler. The Cullen's eyes were gold, but Rolle's were more silver than gold.

He looked at me.

"Hello," he said.

"Rolle," Edward warned him, stepping between us again, blocking me from Rolle's view.

"Edward," Rolle said slowly, confused. "What's going on?"

I heard Carlisle answer, though I couldn't see either of them now.

"We're a little on edge here, Rolle. I'm sorry."

"What's happened?"

"We had a run-in with another tracker," Carlisle told him. "Our friend was attacked and hurt."

_Another_ tracker? Was Rolle a tracker, too?

Though I could not see him again, I felt the tension in the air ratchet up another notch. When Rolle spoke again, the sadness in his voice was gone.

"Who?" he growled. There was anger there now; anger and something else. Something that almost sounded… protective?

"His name was James," Edward answered.

There was a pause and I craned around in my seat to see what was going on. I finally caught sight of Rolle, this time between Emmett and Jasper's shoulders. Rolle's face was dark. He tipped his head as he regarded the Cullens.

"Was?"

"Yeah," Emmett said. "As in past-tense."

As Rolle scanned the faces of the Cullens lined up against him, the change on his face was immediate. The tension in his body relaxed and was replaced with discomfort. He lowered his eyes and turned away.

"I-I'm sorry. I should have..." He strode quickly to the door. "I shouldn't have come."

And as quickly as he'd arrived, he was gone.

Esme turned to Edward. "Don't let him go like that," she told him, but Edward didn't move. "Edward, he's your friend. You have to explain to him..."

He seemed to debate with himself for a moment. Then Edward turned to me and found my fingers, giving them a little squeeze.

"Stay with her," he told his family, and slid between them to find Rolle outside.

I looked around hoping someone would explain to me what was going on. They were casting guilty glances at each other. Alice walked toward me, reaching out to squeeze Jasper's hand as she passed him.

"Who was that?" I asked in a whisper when she plopped onto the sofa next to me.

Alice frowned, then sighed, then sighed again. "Rolle."

"I kinda figured that. You know, what with all the hi's and hello's."

"He's a friend of Edward's," she told me. "They met in Chicago a long time ago."

"Edward's friend?"

The concept shouldn't have seemed as strange as I found it. Edward had been a vampire for ninety years. He must have had other friends outside of his family and the clan in Alaska.

"Why did everybody act that way toward him? It seemed like you all knew him. Is he dangerous?"

"We're all dangerous, Bella," she said, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. She glanced at me and looked away again. "Rolle is a tracker. More than a tracker, he's an assassin."

I blinked. "A vampire assassin? Isn't that redundant?"

Alice laughed nervously. "Yeah, I guess it is. But he's actually a professional."

I had to take a moment to process that. "Edward's friend is an assassin? How does that happen?" I couldn't imagine Edward willingly making friends with a professional killer, vampire or otherwise.

"It's not like they exchanged business cards," Alice said as if this was an apology. "Edward was at a Blue's festival in Chicago and heard Rolle playing piano. He said he was brilliant, a real prodigy. They got to talking about music..."

"A musical assassin?" I muttered looking out the window into the dark yard beyond. I couldn't see them out there.

"He's something different when he plays," Alice explained. "Like different sides of a coin. It's the only time he escapes from hell."

"What?" What did she mean by that? Escaped from hell?

But Alice couldn't explain. Edward appeared at the door again, dragging a mostly reluctant assassin back into the foyer. Rolle lurched forward a step at a time as Edward pulled him by his left elbow arguing with him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Rolle complained feebly.

"No, stop, we're sorry," Edward insisted. "We were just taken by surprise with your visit. Nobody expected you, not even Alice or myself."

Even as Edward said the words he suddenly understood what he was saying.

"How _did_ you get here without our seeing or hearing you?" was finally Edward's perplexed question.

Rolle shrugged, unable to look at any of the Cullens. The floor alone had his undivided attention.

Edward's expression changed suddenly from confusion to sympathy and I knew he alone had heard an answer that we could not.

"Rolle," he sighed softly, shaking his head in sympathy.

Without acknowledging Edward's attempts to reach him, Rolle dragged a glance at me from the floor then looked away quickly as if he would be punished for noticing me.

Still trying to reach him, Edward tried to introduce us. "This is Bella."

Rolle looked up quickly to Edward, to me, and back to Edward. "She's human," he whispered.

Edward shrugged and smiled my crooked smile. "Yes."

"She's part of our family, Rolle," Esme said.

"She's very important to us," Carlisle added.

"And she's good for a laugh now and then," Emmett teased, tossing a genuine smile over his shoulder at me.

But Rolle was still gaping at Edward in awe. His brow came together as he moved closer to examine Edward, searching for something.

The next thing Rolle said proved that he'd found it.

"You love her."

Edward met my eyes a moment, then looked back at Rolle who was still openly appraising him in an intense and obvious way.

"No," Rolle whispered. "More than that..." His voice trailed off.

Rolle turned slowly and stared directly at me. His odd silver eyes – odd even for a vampire -- were wide with some enormous understanding.

"Your match." He looked at Edward again. "The other half. Here. You found her.... here."

Edward was beginning to look uncomfortable and stepped toward me, putting himself between me and Rolle once again.

This time Rolle was quicker to realize the movement.

"And you're afraid of me, for her," he muttered as his eyes met mine over Edward's shoulder.

I felt like he was burning my image into his mind with that stare. Even I could feel the tension building up in the room again, and I wasn't even a vampire. Everyone leapt up when Rolle suddenly grabbed Edward by his collar. The room filled with snarls and hisses, but Rolle's voice boomed over it all.

"Don't you _ever_ put her at risk like that! Don't ever let anything happen to her! Never forget how quick you can lose _everything_!" he shouted, shaking Edward by his shoulders. "Everything you are is nothing without her!"

Jasper leapt across the room and tackled Rolle. They crashed through a glass wall and onto the porch, and everything went silent. I didn't know if Rolle's craziness had spent itself or if Jasper had used his calming influence to quiet him.

Edward still stood unmoving where he was as everyone rushed forward. Alice slid her arm around my waist and helped me across the floor. When I was close enough, Edward took over. His face was stunned and unseeing. I put my hand on his face, pulling his gaze to meet mine.

"Are you all right?" he asked me.

"Me? Are _you_ all right?" I repeated.

He nodded absently as he looked over at the chaos on the porch. I followed his gaze and was surprised by what I saw.

Jasper was kneeling beside Rolle, holding his shoulders as he rocked him and comforted him. The assassin had his hair clutched in his hands as if he could pull off his own head. Esme was on Rolle's other side rubbing his back.

I was suddenly and very definitely angry at all of them. This maniac attacked Edward and they were soothing _him_??

And then I heard Rolle sob.

It was the single most horrible sound I have ever heard from anyone. It echoed low from somewhere deep inside him. Tears came inexplicable to my eyes. He collapsed further in on himself. It was like watching plastic melt in a fire. I'd never seen anyone in pain like this before.

It terrified me.

"Don't, don't," Rolle argued feebly, trying to push away their comforting arms. "I don't... I can't... You don't under..." His voice broke each time. "You don't know... why I'm... stuck... here."

He took several gulping breaths and found the strength to pull their arms from him. When Esme tried to reach for him again, he held up his hand to stop her, flinching away.

He took another deep breath and raised his head a fraction in our direction. "I'm sorry, Edward." His voice was steadier. "I never told you. I can't think about it. I go crazy to think about it."

But Rolle did think about it, and Edward heard him. He staggered and suddenly it was _my_ arms holding _him_ up.

Or not.

As Edward's knees gave out from under him, we both would have crashed to the floor if Emmett hadn't caught us.

"I'll give everything to protect what you have," Rolle was still saying. "I swear it."


	2. Chapter 2 Declarations

**Antithesis, Part 2**

I've never had anyone make a vow to me before. Sure, there were lots of promises from family and friends, like _I promise to meet you after school_ or _Let's promise to be friends forever_, but an actual 'I swear an oath'? I felt numb. It was like the loyalty of a dog, disguised in the dedication of a Marine. With a big gun. And a tank. And a battleship.

Rolle had pulled himself together and was standing on the porch just outside, gazing into the darkness. His arms were folded over his chest. He stood as still as a statue, but now I knew he was nothing more than a cairn, a pile of carefully placed stone. One misstep and it all came crashing down.

Edward was still shaken by what he'd heard in Rolle's mind. He wouldn't let me leave his side, not that I had any intention of going anywhere.

I touched my fingertips to his chin. What I saw in his eyes still frightened me.

"What did you hear?" I whispered as quietly as I could. Edward crushed his eyes closed and shook his head. Instead, Rolle answered from the porch.

"My story," he said loud enough for me to hear.

Something in him broke free from the spot where he'd rooted himself. He came inside and stood a safe distance away from me. The Cullens all stopped what they were doing and turned to face him.

"I never told Edward how I became what I am," Rolle said.

There was something wrong with his voice, something cold and untouchable. Whatever had caused his breakdown earlier was locked away now.

"The first time I touched her skin, I felt a jolt," Rolle began. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about someone else. "It wasn't static, but it was electric. It raced up my arm and we were both so surprised that we looked at each other. Whatever apology we were going to offer died in the air from numb lips."

I slid my fingers into Edward's hand as I remembered the first time I touched him, and could picture exactly what Rolle described.

"I saw my own expression on her face and knew she was thinking the same thing. I'd never felt anything more powerful in my entire existence.

"There was a rough beginning. There always is. This kind of thing is so rare nobody understands it. It's easier to think of it as an obsessive infatuation – that it will pass. But it only got stronger.

"We couldn't stand to be away from each other. Not out of desperation, but real physical pain to be apart. Even watching her leave the room made me anxious. We could talk about anything and everything. We'd tell each other our deepest shames, our guilty pleasures, our darkest secrets... without hesitation. We'd be going on and on about something and suddenly we were finishing each other's sentences.

"We had found something we weren't even searching for, but in the finding of it, it could never be lost. They say two halves make a whole, but only as long as there were two. Once the whole had been made, it couldn't be split again. Dividing it meant destroying the other. I can't tell you what we were before we found each other, but we made each other real and that couldn't be undone. There was no going back."

The way Rolle said 'we made each other real' made me think of the story about the rabbit. The Velveteen Rabbit. I used to read it to Renée when I was little.

Rolle's arms tightened around his chest and it looked like he would dislocate is own shoulders in the process. I knew what was coming and I shivered. Edward drew me closer.

"There was an accident. I was thrown from the car. She was pinned inside. I begged her to hold on. I begged her to stay. I tried to get her out, but I couldn't reach her." Rolle's hand rose unconsciously. "Only our fingers..."

My eyes started to burn again as I pictured the scene in my head. Blood, tears, their final words to each other... the fading light in her eyes as she stared at him, needing him to be the last thing she saw.

Edward flinched again, seeing everything as Rolle saw it in his mind. His arm was almost painfully tight around my waist, but I gratefully welcomed it.

Alice was tucked under Jasper's chin, her face hidden against his chest. Rosalie was in Emmett's arms as well, also stunned by the story. Esme couldn't listen any more and looked beseechingly at Carlisle who helped her up and took her from the room.

I wished I could have followed them, but Rolle was telling his story to _us_, Edward and I. He wanted us to know.

"I found out later it had all been intentional – the accident. A contract on another friend who was with us at the time – a sloppy job – collateral damage. When I found out all I could feel was insane rage feeding on the pain. I wasn't real any more. I stopped being human that day. A human being could never do what I did."

There was something terrible and frightening in his face, and I could see the killer in him now. No, not a killer... an avenging demon turned into even more of a monster driven by unthinkable pain.

Rolle shrugged and his tone could have sounded conversational but for the blank emptiness in his eyes. "I don't know how long I looked for him – everything is blurred together. I don't know how I finally caught up with him. I don't even know how I knew to be under the bridge that night.

"But I do remember his bones breaking under my fists. I remember him trying to fight back. I remember his gun and the smell of the powder."

Rolle's hand moved to a spot on his chest and I imagined he was covering a gunshot wound.

Then his voice was flat. "I remember him dying. I remember not caring, so I killed him again. And again."

Edward clenched his teeth and pressed his free hand hard into his eyes as if he could push Rolle's images out of his mind.

"I don't know how many times I killed him after he died. I did it until the rage was gone. Then there was nothing left. I was empty -- nothing. And then I heard _his_ voice, soft and velvet.... He said he'd been watching me."

My eyes shot wide. I couldn't think the thought I was thinking.

"He said he was impressed with me, my persistence -- that I had a natural talent, that I could be useful."

The thought I couldn't think suddenly exploded with the words. Rolle had been human when he killed the man who caused the accident. He'd hunted down the killer as a human, and someone had been watching in the darkness….

_Rolle was made a vampire that night._

"But I guess I just died without knowing what he wanted. A murderer..." Rolle's voice trailed off.

I narrowed my eyes. What?

"And now I'm here," he was still saying, unable to see past his own pain to see my confusion. "I'm here and she's not."

"What do you mean?" I whispered, unable to stop myself.

Rolle didn't seem to hear me now. He was the statue again, as he was five minutes ago when he was out on the porch.

Edward sighed slowly and stroked my fingers in his hand. "Bella, he thinks he followed her in death. He doesn't know what he is. He thinks this is hell. Losing Gillian broke his mind as well as his heart."

"Gillian." I don't know why I felt I had to say her name.

"He had an eidetic memory when he was human, and that gift became his curse when he was changed. He can never forget. When he remembers something, he remembers it as if he were really there all over again: each smell, every sound, the smallest details. He cannot distinguish between the past and the present when he succumbs to these memories."

I shivered at the thought of it. Time couldn't heal all wounds if you kept reliving them in high definition over and over again.

"Why didn't you tell us, Edward," Alice wanted to know. Her voice was cracked and thick.

I'd never seen Alice so upset before.

Edward slowly shook his head. "He never told me, never remembered these memories around me before."

"Poor guy," Jasper said. I could tell he was also thinking about the eternal memory. He pulled Alice closer, but it looked like he was hiding behind her, too.

Everyone had things in their past that they wanted to forget.

But Rolle's story and his earlier reaction toward Edward's relationship with me were coming together now.

A rare love, misunderstood... True love? That perfect match? Finding another person who completed you and filled all the empty areas in your heart that you hadn't even known were empty? Being unable to live without them because it was like living without air?

And this strange being frozen before us now. A musical prodigy turned vampire tracker and assassin. Whose mind was shattered wandering through the world without his true love. Believing he was trapped in hell because he murdered the man who killed her... and pledging to protect the love Edward and I felt toward each other.

I was torn about Rolle.

Part of me felt grateful to have a staunch protector who truly understood what was at risk. I had no doubt in his desire to fulfill his oath.

Another part of me wondered if I would end up the same way if anything ever happened to Edward.

Something else occurred to me then. Something Edward had told me once about how rare it was for them to change. That they were frozen in time as they had been the moment they were transformed from mortal to immortal. I looked at Rolle, realizing his heart would be eternally broken. His rage at Gillian's death had been spent in his vengeance, so he was eternally hollow and bereft. That his memory of her and her death would replay in his mind again and again as if he were living it for the very first time.

I felt tears begin to burn in my throat and I remembered what Alice said about Rolle being able to escape from hell when he played music.

I clutched Edward's arm. "Play the piano," I begged him.

His face looked pained at my own expression of helplessness. He brushed my cheek with his fingers and rose to his piano. Watching Rolle, Edward played a song by George Winston. I couldn't recall the name of it, but I knew it was part of his autumn pieces.

Rolle blinked and turned his head to where the music came from. The rigid hold he had on his body seemed to melt, and he dropped his arms to his side. His feet carried him to the piano as if he were unaware of his own actions until he stood at Edward's shoulder, looking down at the keys. The blank horror of his face slowly vanished, too, and I could see the playfulness return to his features that he had demonstrated when he first knocked on the Cullen's door.

Alice was right. Two sides of a coin.

Rolle reached around Edward's shoulder and cautiously played right-handed, adding to the simple tune. As the music slowly grew into something more, Edward slid over on the piano bench to make room for Rolle. Within seconds, they were both playing the keys and the richness of the sound from four hands playing at once was breathtaking.

The distraction had worked. Rolle played now with a fervor and even though his back was to me, I could see his own smile reflected on the faces of Alice and Jasper and Emmett as they watched Edward and Rolle play in unison.

Carlisle and Esme slowly came back into the room to watch them. Esme laughed when the two performers clashed into each other's elbows and moved in synchronization to cross arms in order to reach the keys they needed to play -- Edward's left hand, Rolle's left, Edward's right hand and Rolle's right. I craned around in my seat to try and see better.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Rolle said, jumping up from the bench.

The large room was suddenly and unnaturally quiet after their exuberant performance.

Rolle blurred to the far side of the house and came back with a loveseat in tow. He positioned it next to the piano.

"You want a hand?" Emmett asked with a dismayed laugh.

Without answering, Rolle blurred again and there was a small pile of pillows on one side of the small sofa. In another step, he was at my side and before I knew what he was doing, I was in his arms.

The entire room had frozen in place. Seven shocked and tense faces were looking at us. Edward's was the most frightening of all. Rolle seemed oddly oblivious to what he had just done to the Cullens.

"Wow, you smell great!" Rolle said with a stunned and shocked expression on his face.

I could feel the blood run out of my face.

"But you can't see anything back here," he continued, again, not able to consider the implications of what he'd just said. There was no way he could know how my scent affected Edward.

He carried me over to the loveseat next to Edward and the piano and propped up my leg onto the pillows.

"There!" he said with a satisfied grin. It took him a full second to look up at the others in the room, returning their tense stares with his own confused one.

"What?" He looked at Edward. "That's better, right?"

If it weren't for the heart-stopping tension in the room, it would almost have been comical to watch the change in Rolle's face as he rolled his eyes.

"Pro-tec-tion," he enunciated. "Pro. Tect. As in gonna kick anyone's butt, built-in body-guard type. A little faith! Jeez."

Edward gazed at him and uncertainty was written all over his face.

"Well, if you're gonna sit there gawping at me," Rolle snapped, "then get your butt out of that seat and let me teach you a couple things, plebe!"

Edward glared at him skeptically, but relinquished the bench. He sat behind me on the small sofa and wrapped his arms protectively around me as Rolle happily took his place at the Grand Piano.

Shaking his head as he considered the keys before him, Rolle muttered, "Vampires. You're all so damned serious!"


	3. Chapter 3 Stimulations

**Antithesis, Part 3**

Rolle played then with a flourish, his hands dancing over the keys in a way that left me stunned. I loved listening to Edward play and thought he was very good at it, but Rolle was something completely different. I realized as I watched him that it was completely effortless for him. It seemed like a sixth sense, something he was born with and it just _was_. It wasn't a matter of learning or understanding. It was like opening your eyes and being able to see.

He sang as he played. They were songs I'd never heard before. The first two songs made me think about Edward so strongly that I felt they had to have been written for him. I found myself fascinated by the lyrics and wondered if Edward had perhaps written them. It seemed like a private glimpse into his heart and his aloneness.

The next song made me think of Emmett and Rosalie. The words were simply too perfect in describing them. The lyrics were not explicit, but the imagery they created were vivid enough to make me blush. Emmett pulled Rosalie closer during the chorus and smiled a promise at her. When Rolle grinned at them I felt sure the song was for them.

Rolle changed the tone of his impromptu concert then and the song was dark and haunting. I found myself thinking about Rolle's story. His loss. His heartache. His guilt. His face was calm and serene though as he sang, even though his voice was thick and scratchy with pain and longing. He did not look at anyone while he played this time. His eyes were closed. I supposed he was watching his own internal movie play out his life's regrets.

He paused longer at the end of this song, letting the piano draw out the last note as long as it could manage.

Then he looked at Carlisle and Esme across the room, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He smiled at them and the room was silent. We all turned to look at the two of them, wondering what prompted the change in Rolle. But Carlisle and Esme were doing nothing at all to warrant his particular change in mood.

Without touching the piano, Rolle began to sing to them. He didn't touch the piano until the second verse. The words were like a love poem that Carlisle might have written to Esme. It was sweet and tender and felt very intimate.

I was astounded that I'd never heard any of these songs on the radio. I wasn't the music aficionado that Edward was, and my CD collection was meager but I still listened to a lot of music.

I didn't even know Alice had left the room until she was coming back in with a guitar in her hands.

She handed it to Rolle as he finished Carlisle and Esme's song.

"Me next," she said with a smile.

Rolle laughed and smiled back indulgently.

"Me next?" I asked, confused.

But Rolle was already strumming up his next song, and Edward held up a finger to hold off my question.

I marveled at Edward's expression and the light in his eyes as he watched Rolle play. I could see by his fascination with the maestro that it was Rolle's musical prowess that had prompted Edward to first talk to him all those years ago in Chicago.

Like the previous song that sounded like a poem from Carlisle to Esme, this song sounded like a letter from Jasper to Alice. It wasn't as poetic as the last song, but I could almost imagine Jasper saying the words himself.

Rolle's voice was strong and fervent. It wasn't hard to imagine him performing on a stage somewhere.

When it was over, Alice turned and wrapped her arms around Jasper and I was even more confused. Were these really songs from each of the men to their significant others? Were they songs that had been written especially for each couple?

I couldn't ask because Rolle was off and running again without a pause. Rolle's voice was clear and strong. His smile seemed to radiate from a magical place inside him as he performed for us. _This_ smile actually poured from his eyes. _This_ Rolle was a completely different being from the one who had first entered the house.

The next song was fun and light and had a very subtle reggae feel. It was another love song and the lyrics were poignant and felt a little possessive even though they made us laugh. I couldn't figure out who this song might be for. Maybe it was for all of us.

Rolle had an expert's pace for his impromptu concert for us. Where this song was light, the next was its opposite.

He turned to the piano again, but he simply played a chord now and again as he told us a story. This story was his story, I was certain of it. It was far too intense for it to be anything but an original piece. It was exactly the story he had just told me: a broken heart still trying to find meaning in his mockery of a life, still living in the light of her love in his memory.

It was a beautiful balance of pain and strength, heartache and hope.

He did not pause when he finished and went right into his next song which seemed to echo the pain but also the hope. This song was more musically challenging, and Edward leaned forward beside me to watch Rolle's hands dance across the keys.

I was stuck again how effortless his playing seemed. It seemed to me that he put more thought into his vocals and that whatever his hands were doing was completely incidental.

As if to prove me right, he picked up the guitar again and launched into a fast-paced song that blurred the chorus into a long string of words that held the bulk of the music. The guitar was secondary to everything except to carry the beat along. Rolle danced in his seat as he played this time. His face was so expressive that I understood what Alice meant when she said that he was able to escape from hell when he played.

I'd lost track of time as Rolle played, now picking at a song on the guitar. I wondered which way the song would go this time – music or lyrics. As I listened, I began to suspect that this was a song written by Rolle _to_ Edward! It was like he was encouraging Edward to be brave and take chances, and to let himself lose his inhibitions. This was not a love song, though. This was a song about living life and reaching for unreachable things.

I found myself liking Rolle more and more.

The next song – this one on the piano again – turned out to be the last song for the night. The lyrics seemed to be appropriate to all of us, how we felt about each other. Rolle's hands danced across the keys. His expression was sincere. His voice was strong and pure, and I could only guess how he must have sounded when he was still human.

An entire hour had passed us by when he pushed himself away from the keyboard and turned to thank Alice for the guitar.

We all began clapping.

"Thank you, Rolle. Truly," Carlisle said, patting him on the back.

"Brilliant," Edward added.

"That song before the end... What was it called?" I wanted to know.

Rolle smiled at me. "What do you want it to be called?"

I stared back at him confused.

"Bella," Edward explained, picking up my hand. "Rolle wasn't playing songs he already knew. He was making them up as he went."

My head whipped around to face him. "What?"

Edward nodded. "Just now. What we've been listening to are completely new."

"No way!" I gaped at Rolle. "_All_ of them?"

Rolle shrugged.

"But that was over an hour of.... You just created all of.... You played... and sung.... _All_ of them??" I stammered again.

Rolle seemed embarrassed and looked at the others around the room, maybe hoping for some help from one of them.

I was still stunned and I knew my mouth was hanging open. I shook my head, huffing in amazement. "I thought the lyrics were too perfect, too dead on..."

I met his gaze squarely. "The first song...?" I prompted.

"Was for you and Edward," he answered.

I could not stop shaking my head. A mild disappointment crept over me and tamed my incredulity.

"So much for buying the CD, huh?" I couldn't hide the regret in my voice. "Remind me that next time we have to set up a recorder."

Rolle chuckled.

"I'll play them for you again anytime you want," he promised.

"It won't be the same," I sulked.

"It'll be completely the same, if you like." He tapped his temple and winked at me. "Eidetic memory."

Oddly enough that made me feel better and I felt myself smile.

It was hard to think of him as utterly shattered when he smiled with his eyes. His white blonde hair fell a little shaggy around his head, and his silver eyes were clear of pain.

Without thinking first, I found myself commenting on it. "Your eyes are silver."

His even gaze clouded a bit and grew guarded. "Yes."

"I'm sorry," I tried to apologize awkwardly. "I didn't mean..."

"No, that's all right," Rolle said, glancing at Edward.

There seemed to be a silent communication going on between them – Rolle with his thoughts, and Edward with his eyes and subtle shrug of his shoulders.

"You've noticed the way our eyes normally change color?" Rolle asked, looking at me again.

I nodded. "Black when you're thirsty, then gold."

"If you feed from animals," he added. "And red for those who feed on humans."

I remembered James' eyes. I swallowed and nodded.

"That's normal," he said quietly. "But I'm not exactly normal."

Rolle turned slightly to see Carlisle beside him. "I don't think even you knew this.... Marcus was my maker."

Carlisle tensed at this news.

"Four days before he lost his mate," Rolle explained.

"I had no idea he had ever...." Carlisle was still dismayed by this revelation.

Rolle only nodded. "I don't know what he wanted of me when he killed me the first time. When he killed me the second time, I suppose he simply didn't have the energy for whatever he wanted me for. He threw me -- what was left of me -- into the ocean."

Rolle had turned to look at me again. "I don't feed on animals. I feed on ocean predators."

I drew a breath to speak again, but Edward gently squeezed my hand to stop me.

"It's late," Edward said instead. "I should get Bella home so she can get some rest."

"Should I wait?" Rolle asked.

"I won't be back tonight," I was happy to hear Edward's answer. I'd been wondering myself if he would stay with me when he had company here.

Rolle smiled knowingly and I felt myself blush furiously.

"Another time then," Rolle said still smiling. "I'll be in the area for a while." He inclined his head toward me. "Until we meet again. It's been an honor."

How do you respond when someone says something like that?

"Uh... yeah, mine, too. It was nice meeting you."

I said goodnight to the others and hugged Alice before Edward carried me out to his car. For some reason I didn't feel it was safe to ask my question until we were parked in front of Charlie's house.

"What did he mean, _when he killed me the second time_?"

"Rolle believes he's dead. Dead, and trapped in hell."

"Yeah, I got that." I stared at Edward and felt my frown deepen. "But he's a vampire. He _knows_ he a vampire."

Edward nodded. "This is true, but in his fractured world this is the only way to explain how he could survive without Gillian. Marcus took his mortal life, and then less than a week later, he tore Rolle apart. The first step to killing one of us."

"The first step?"

"You have to burn the remains."

I was never more glad that Edward could not read my mind as it occurred to me.... Jasper and Emmett had burned James' remains. This realization numbed my mind and it took me a moment to reconstruct the conversation to what had prompted Rolle's revelation.

"So that's why his eyes are silver? Someone killed him within an inch of oblivion and then got tired and didn't finish the job?"

"That's one hypothesis."

"But you don't know for sure?"

"No."

"How can that be?"

Edward looked at me and I could tell he was wishing we were not having this conversation.

"No one has ever stopped before. It tends to create a larger problem in the form of a more determined enemy."

I stared out the window into the shadows of the forest.

"If Marcus had just lost his mate I wonder if that was the whole point. Maybe he was creating a solution to his pain."

I could feel Edward staring at me so I turned to look at him again.

"I think you might be right. I hadn't considered that before. But if that were the case, then Marcus desperately underestimated the power of Rolle's guilt. He feels he's in hell for killing the man who killed Gillian. He wouldn't kill Marcus as well."

This confused me. "But Alice said that Rolle was an assassin. He must kill people all the time."

"He has. He kills, but never feeds from humans."

"And his eyes are silver because he feeds on… what? Sharks?"

"That is another hypothesis. The one he feels is true." Edward shrugged. "I cannot begin to comprehend the workings or rationalizations of Rolle's mind. At times, he is a complete contradiction, which is why I won't leave you alone with him. He's too unstable. That's the reason he was able to come to the house without either Alice or I being aware of him."

"What do you mean?"

Edward's eyes were suddenly sad for his bipolar friend. "He had no idea how he got there. There was no decision or conscious thought. He simply found himself at our door. His mind is trapped in the hell it has created even as he walks through the real world. The song he sang tonight... the one about being broken, but breathing? I'd heard it one other time. That is his tale, but he cannot believe that he could continue to exist without Gillian especially after being killed not once, but twice. He believes he is truly dead."

"Couldn't someone try to explain to him what happened?"

Edward thought about it a moment, but didn't seem convinced. "I don't think Rolle would want to believe it. He might find the idea that he could have survived Gillian's death inexcusable. He'd probably fight against the very notion of it to the point of becoming dangerous. Even if he could be convinced, I'm not sure what he would do. He might try to make _his_ reality an actual reality."


	4. Chapter 4 Remediations

**Antithesis, Chapter 4**

...After Breaking Dawn...

The night was something completely different to me now. My hearing, my sight, my sense of smell... opened that sunless world to me as I had never experienced it before. The dark – wasn't. It was a million shades of gray and pinpoints of mirrored white eyes peeked back at me through the forest. Even the bright light of the moon had more hues than I'd ever realized. The quiet noises were no longer quiet, either. Crickets were louder. So was the soft pad of a bobcat moving over the moss-covered ground as it wended through the ferns. I could even hear a banana slug sliding through the mud of the river's bank.

Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. Something large and white moved under the surface of the river. It did not splash or make a ripple. It simply hovered under the surface, making large sweeping circles up and down the length of the banks. It reminded me of the sea turtles Edward and I would watch from the beach of Isle Esme. I realized it was a man when powerful arms and legs swept out to propel him forward.

When he got to the far end of the river, he broke the surface and I knew at once that it was Rolle. There was no mistaking his white blonde hair, especially in the light of the full moon. It illuminated him.

We hadn't seen him at all since that night he showed up to serenade us, unexpected and unannounced, pledging that he would do anything to protect the love Edward and I felt towards each other.

Since then, I'd crashed my motorcycle multiple times, jumped off a cliff, been attacked by Laurent, the Volturi – twice – twenty newborn vampires, Riley, Victoria...

Some protector he turned out to be!

The least he could have done would have been to keep me from getting that damn paper cut on my eighteenth birthday! He didn't even make it to our wedding.

I wondered now if Alice had invited him... Which also made me wonder if anyone knew he was back.

Rolle pulled himself up against the rocks and reclined against them staring up into the unusually cloudless night sky. Like me, he seemed fascinated by the moon.

I don't think he knew I was there.

I'd never seen Rolle around water before. He seemed so at peace as the black water swirled around him. His hands rested on the surface, feeling the slippery molecules pass under his palms. Water streamed down his face out of his hair. He shook his head sharply making his own little rainstorm and his hair stood up in little spikes.

He ran one hand over the top of his head and pulled it over his face, pressing into his eyes and growing still again.

I could tell by his stillness that he was lost in his memories.

I understood his pain so much better now than I had the night I'd first met him. We had almost lived his tragedy, Edward and I. We had lost one another and, even though it was what Edward thought was best for me at the time, we lived without each other for months. Yes, we understood Rolle's pain and we both understood his strength for being able to endure that kind of loss for all these years, even if it drove him mad.

We had the happily ever after that Rolle had lost.

As I watched him, he raised a hand out of the river and stared at the water as it dripped off the ends of his fingertips. He touched his forefinger to the corner of his eye to let a drop roll down his cheek.

Vampires could not cry.

I felt Edward come up behind me and held out my hand for him to take, which he did. He did not need to read my mind to know how much Rolle's pain hurt me. I hated feeling so helpless in regard to our friend.

Edward pulled me to his side as he walked us toward Rolle and the river. He could sense me tense against him and offered me a reassuring smile.

"I have an idea," he said.

We covered the distance slowly, but Rolle did not acknowledge us. He turned his face to the moon again and the single bead of water tracked down his cheek and lingered on his jaw.

Edward looked up at the moon, and then asked quietly, "Where were you the first time you stood under the moon with her?"

Rolle did not turn to face us, but I could see the memory shift on his face. A serene smile spread slowly across his features. The haunted look in his eyes melted.

"Bow Bridge in Central Park," he answered in a whisper. His eyes closed as he savored it once again. "I'd been working myself up to try and kiss her all day, but she kissed me first. It scared me to death. Then I felt like I'd melted right through the bridge. She tasted like butterscotch."

Edward looked down at me and I realized I was smiling. I hugged him to thank him for his wonderful idea. If Rolle's memory trapped him anyway, why not let him be trapped in happier thoughts?

"Do you remember how you felt the first time you heard her say your name?" Edward asked, his eyes were dark in the moonlight as they fixed on mine. I knew he was remembering that moment between us as well.

"Complete," Rolle whispered. "She knew my name. It made me shiver. It was like I'd never heard my own name before until I heard her say it."

Edward smiled at me, nodding, as if he understood completely.

"What color were her eyes?" Edward asked.

I felt a mild disappointment that my eyes had changed to the disturbing red they were now, but I looked forward to the day that mine would match Edward's.

"Pale green... like new leaves," Rolle whispered. "But it wasn't the color that mattered. It was the _way_ she looked at me – as if she could see my soul. She knew me – everything about me, and she accepted me. It was there in her eyes – that she chose me, wanted me, loved me... even though it scared her."

This surprised both of us and in a single motion Edward and I looked at Rolle. He turned to face us too and the water splashed around him as he moved.

"We were both terrified. No human being can submit to that soul deep vulnerability without being scared. To give so much of yourself to another person is one of the most frightening things you'll ever do. We knew what we were doing, and we did it willingly. We exchanged hearts. I had hers. She had mine. It was the only thing we could do."

I gasped as he said these words, jumping in the circle of Edward's arms with the knowledge that I had an answer for him at last. I had no idea if it would convince him, but I had to try.

I knelt on the wet grass of the riverbank and looked into Rolle's silver eyes.

"You still have her heart, Rolle. She left it with you because she trusted you with it. You alone. I know she's gone and she took _your_ heart with her, but you still have hers. You were the one she gave it to because she knew you would always take care of it, no matter what."

Rolle stared at me askew, but I could tell he was trying to understand.

"No. Matter. Where. You. Are." I stressed each word. "You protect her heart."

I felt Edward kneel beside me, putting a protective arm across me. Rolle was an assassin. He knew how to easily kill another vampire. If Rolle snapped, there wouldn't be much anyone could do to stop him. I felt certain, though, that he was never more in control than he was in this moment. He continued to stare at me as he processed what I'd said. I could see that he _wanted_ to believe me, but he _needed_ to know it was really true not just something he could wish into his fractured reality.

Rolle blinked slowly and looked between Edward and me. He reached out slowly and rested his hand on Edward's protective arm. Pushing himself up with his other hand, he leaned forward and softly kissed my cheek.

"If only wishing made it so," he breathed.

I reached up and put a hand on either side of his face, looking intently into his eyes.

"It's not wishing. I know it. I believe it with everything I am." I could not put more sincerity into my voice if I tried.

Rolle gently pulled his face out of my hands by leaning away again, but his gaze never left mine.

"I love you for trying," he said after a long silence passed between us. "But these prison gates won't open up for me. If I've come to accept any one thing in my existence, it's that I wasn't worthy to be the fairy tale."

He looked at Edward and then back to me again.

"You are," he whispered to us.

I felt sadness overwhelm me. I wanted to scream at Rolle that he wasn't dead. I wanted convince him that this world wasn't Hell. I wanted him to know he could escape this life. But I didn't want Rolle to die to find freedom from his personal prison.

I think Edward somehow sensed my struggle. He pulled me back.

I was so close to reaching him. I was so close to making him understand.

As we turned to head back to the house, I was sure I saw another drop of water run down Rolle's dry face.

* * *

_Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story  
__Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending,  
__The wanderer, harried for years on end..._

_**-**__** The Odyssey**_


	5. Chapter 5 Visitations

**Antithesis, Chapter 5**

...Halifax, Nova Scotia...

I still wasn't used to moving. I didn't mind it, really. I was bringing everything — everyone — I loved with me, after all. I just wasn't used to it. I'd never realized before how much the Cullen's had to move until we were in our third home.

We had stayed in Forks for four more years then we moved to the mountain town of Twin Creeks, Montana where Esme had a dream job of renovating a 120-year old building into a Bed and Breakfast on the Lewis and Clark expedition trail. Now we were in Duncans Cove, Nova Scotia only thirty miles from Halifax. I liked it here because it reminded it me of Forks, though I could distinguish the differences between the distant smell of the Atlantic.

The house, the air, the trees, the weather; everything here was different, new. Some things never changed, though, and given my relatively untested immortality I was still eternally grateful for these constants. It could have been twenty minutes or twenty years; every time I opened my eyes I saw love and adoration shining back at me in Edward's face.

In the moments after our shared euphoria my shield easily accepted his mind as easily as my body accepted his. Lingering tremors shuddered through our bodies and minds, still linked as one. The only sound that echoed in our room now was our labored breaths. His eyes were cast in shadow but they stared straight into my own as he once again had his confidence reaffirmed by my unspoken thoughts. I smiled back at him in delight that he could still have that expression of total amazement on his face after all this time. I traced my fingertips over his cheek, our limbs entwined around each other.

Edward's smile slowly became a chuckle.

"What?" My question was nothing more than a breath.

"Remember asking me how long it would take for things to feel 'normal'? When the craving would subside?"

I remembered. He had told me that for Rosalie and Emmett the worst of their love affair had lasted ten years.

"I have a feeling we're going to beat their record," he whispered before kissing me, pressing me back once again against the pillow.

I loved kissing him. I loved being kissed by him. His lips were reverent and possessive and hungry and surrendering all at the same time. From the first time he kissed me to now, this tender intimacy — an intimacy that was for me alone — connected me to him in ways that were more than just physical. Just when I was starting to get lost in his kiss again, Edward growled in frustration and dropped his head to my shoulder.

I understood that vexed sound now and it was easy for me to guess at the source. Since _I_ had heard nothing that meant he heard something unspoken.

More than the others in our family, it was usually Alice's thoughts that interrupted Edward. More than the others, he was attuned to Alice for her visions and they would come to him almost as quickly as to her.

However, he was more than disinclined to pay attention to Alice when we were sharing an intimate moment, especially when he had full access to my own thoughts. That could only mean that she thought his name suddenly. For the two of them, it was as good as having her yell to get his attention.

Since I hadn't heard her in the house I knew that's probably what had happened. _Alice?_ I guessed, wordlessly.

Edward nodded and pressed a deep kiss against my throat eliciting exactly the response he knew it would.

"What does she want?" I asked urgently. "Do we have time?"

Edward growled "No" against my neck, and I growled in return, digging my fingers into his sides out of reflex.

He gasped and wrenched his head away, clenching his arms to his ribs to trap and still my hands. He panted heavily with his eyes closed as my shield slid back from him. The one thing that had not changed when I became a vampire was to instantly recognize when Edward was pulling away from me. It didn't carry the same frustration as it had back then, but I knew him well enough to realize he was putting an end to our private time — at least for now. I sighed heavily and let my hands go slack against his skin.

"I thought she and Jasper were hunting," I said, hoping to keep the complaint out of my tone.

"They're on their way back," Edward answered. His voice was still rough with the strain of putting the brakes on our play. "She wanted us to know that Rolle's coming."

Rolle? I snorted. "He just can't get enough of our company, can he?" I teased rather petulantly. "It's been what? Four years since we saw him last?"

Edward gave me an odd look as he rose to put some clothes on. "Not quite that."

"Still... I just find it ironic how he reacted to me, to us, the first night I met him. I guess I thought he'd be around more often. You know, doing all that protecting he talked about."

"Have you needed protecting?" Edward asked with a grin as he pulled a shirt over his head.

"You know what I mean," I said as I reached for the slacks I had left on the floor. "I'm just surprised that he hardly ever visits us, even just to check up and see how everyone is doing."

Edward nodded. "Time passes differently for our kind."

I pulled a sweater over my head, saying, "Not that different. He's about as regular as a lightning strike on a sunny day."

I felt Edward grasp the neckline of my sweater so I wouldn't pull my hair when I pushed my head through it.

"It's the same for you, you know," he said gently, now running his hand over my neck to help me get my hair over the collar. "You're already doing it, too."

"What do you mean?"

"It hasn't been four years, love. It's been ten."

I paused, thinking. "No."

"Yes." He was ginning at me.

I thought back to the last time we had seen Rolle, thought about our time in Forks, then Montana... The days started to click in my head. My God, he was right!

Edward smiled and wrapped his arms around me as he watched me add up the weeks and years.

"You see? We track time differently than humans would. Living so long as we do, and without sleep, what can feel like a day is actually a week depending on what vies for our attention." He snuggled into me. "Take us for instance. It feels like only yesterday you whispered, 'I do' to me. You've consumed all my focus since then and no time has passed for me at all."

He pressed a tender kiss to my lips and as I slid my hands under his arms and up to his shoulders. I pushed my shield back again to share my memories of that day with him then we heard the front door open as Emmett greeted Rolle.


	6. Chapter 6 Inclinations

**Antithesis, Chapter 6**

Edward slid his hand into mine and we left our room to greet our visitor. I didn't need vampire hearing to hear Emmett in the foyer.

"Oh my God!" we heard Emmett cry, his voice carrying throughout the house. "Look what the dog dragged in! Where the hell have you been?"

I did need vampire hearing to hear Rolle's response.

"Emmett," he greeted softly in return.

I could hear the two of them laughing and I could imagine Rolle's unique greeting for Emmett, grasping arms and bumping shoulders and even as I imagined it, I could hear them patting each other on the back.

Edward squeezed my hand and quickened his pace, excited to see his old friend. As we came into view up the hall, Rolle turned his gaze toward us. His smile was extraordinary.

Obviously, today was a good day for Rolle.

"Hey!" Rolle exclaimed, crossing the foyer to meet us. "There they are!"

Edward and Rolle embraced with smiles and slaps on the back before Rolle turned to me with a glowing expression. I felt all my doubts about him fall away.

"Bella," he said making my name sound like a prayer. Damn it.

I found myself smiling right back at him. How can you be mad at someone who was obviously that happy to see you? As Edward had explained to me, it suddenly felt like no time had passed at all.

"Hello, Rolle," I answered as he pressed a hand to my cheek and leaned in to kiss the other.

I couldn't suppress the amused puffing sound I made through my nose as I realized I now had my very own Rolle-Greeting. At the same moment I realized his touch felt strange.

"Eww, you're all sticky," I laughed pulling away from him.

Rolle glanced down at himself. "Oh. Sorry. My bad."

"Sticky?" Emmett asked coming forward and poking Rolle with a meaty finger. He looked down at his hand. "That was you!" he said as if he just realized this fact. He had obviously noticed something as well when Rolle touched him.

"_Why_ are you sticky?" Edward asked trying not to laugh.

"Salt," Rolle answered.

I saw my own confusion on Emmett and Edward's faces.

When Rolle was not more forthcoming, Emmett prompted him. "Okay, I'll bite," he said with a shrug.

Rolle tipped his head and looked at him. It was easy to see the strain of laughter on his face.

Emmett's confusion deepened at the way Rolle was looking at him, when he suddenly realized what he had said and burst into laughter. "Ah, funny. Vampire joke. I get it," he laughed.

Rolle's grin grew. "You're too easy," he teased.

"So why are you all covered in salt?" I finally asked.

"Swam," was all Rolle said, apparently thinking this was answer enough.

"Swam? You... what? Swam here?" I stammered.

Rolle nodded. "I was hungry."

After ten years, you'd think this wouldn't surprise me. It still didn't keep me from laughing.

"So where did you swim from?" I needed to know.

"The straits," he said.

"The straits?" I repeated, confused.

Rolle nodded again. "I went back to your place in Forks to visit, but you weren't there."

"The straits of San Juan de Fuca?" I gasped. He offered this information as easily as someone would use a 7-11 as a mile-marker when giving directions to a friend.

Rolle nodded again as if this were nothing to him and I was overcome by the sudden awareness of exactly how much time Rolle spent in the water; how comfortable he was there.

"You swam around North America?" Edward asked, obviously equally as surprised as I was.

"Did you swim through the Panama or did you go all the way around Cape Horn?" Emmett wanted to know with delight in his voice at the idea.

"Nah, that's too far. I went around the top. Better hunting up that way."

"What kind of hunting?" Emmett asked, beating me to the question that was immediately on my own lips.

Emmett's interest was now piqued, and I have to admit, so was mine. After all our joking years ago about living in Antarctica I found myself wondering what that would have been like.

"Harp seals, polar bear, a few palegic sharks here and there," Rolle answered easily.

"Ever try for a killer whale?" Emmett wanted to know, and I could see curiosity burn in my husband's eyes as well at the idea.

Rolle shrugged with a deep look of dissatisfaction. "Just once. I regretted it later."

"What?" Emmett exclaimed, obviously unable to imagine how that could be possible.

"It's just too much," Rolle explained. "I couldn't drink it all. It felt wasteful."

Wasteful? Was I really in the middle of this discussion?

"And it's kind of a pain getting through the blubber layer," Rolle continued. "It's just too much work when you're in the hunt. You have to actually stop and think about what you're doing just to get to what you need."

I couldn't quite imagine that. Of all the times I had been hunting, the two events were linked into one moment: the hunt and the blood. I couldn't help the very human image that came to my mind: hunting for the elusive coconut, and then spending fifteen minutes getting it open.

"Why not go for a smaller one?" Emmett asked again. "Less blood, less waste, less blubber...?" he offered.

Rolle grimaced, wrinkling his nose at the idea. "Nah, I couldn't do that to a baby."

I couldn't stand it any more. I bit my lips and turned to hide my face against Edward's shoulder to keep from laughing out loud at this completely ridiculous, and yet oddly serious, conversation. The assassin couldn't kill a baby whale.

Who was I and where was the hidden camera??

Edward must have realized my dilemma and gestured Rolle into the living room. He took a seat on the floor across from us when we all sat down. Edward, ever the gentleman-host, stood again to fetch a chair when Rolle waved him down.

He plucked at his shirt. "I don't want to ruin the furniture. Esme would have my head," he added with a smirk.

The door burst open again followed by Alice's squeal of delight. "Rolle!"

"Hey, squirt!" Rolle replied, getting up once again. Alice danced over to him. He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead.

And there it was — the only Rolle-Greeting I hadn't seen yet. I smiled to myself. My collection was complete.

Alice recoiled at once. "Eww, you're all sticky!"

The room went up in laughter once again.

Rolle shrugged and simply waved at Jasper instead of his normal greeting. "Apparently, I'm not presentable or I'd come over there," he said to Jasper by way of an apology.

"Why don't you go and get a shower," Edward offered. "I can find some clothes for you to change into, and then we can visit more. Carlisle and Esme will be back in a few hours."

"Where's Rose?" Rolle asked.

"You keep your sticky hands off my wife," Emmett growled.

Rolle looked at him reproachfully. "You're completely ignoring the potential of the situation," he scolded. "Have you learned nothing, Grasshopper?"

The contemplative expression that settled on Emmett's face set Jasper off on his own laughing binge.

"She'll be back in an hour. She drove into the city to get brake pads for the Jeep," Alice answered, poking an elbow into Jasper's side.

"Come on," Edward said, gesturing Rolle with his arm toward the north wing of the house. "I'll show you where you can get cleaned up."


	7. Chapter 7 Illuminations

**Antithesis, Chapter 7**

Jasper took several steps forward to watch Edward and Rolle walk down the hall. When they disappeared through one of the doors, he shook his head and turned toward me.

"He's actually happy," Jasper said, his voice amazed.

"Did he really _swim_ all the way here from Forks?" I asked.

Emmett shrugged. "It's not impossible, but I've never known any vampire to spend as much time in the water as Rolle."

"Do you think it's because Marcus threw him into the ocean after ripping him to pieces?" Alice asked.

Jasper shrugged again. "Maybe he had an affinity for the ocean even before he was changed," he offered as another possibility.

"I still can't get my head around the idea of a vampire assassin," I confessed, my gaze lingering down the hall where Edward had gone. "How does that even work? I mean, who hires him? Humans? Other vampires? Does he advertise?"

Emmett snorted loudly before bursting into laughter. Jasper, however, did not find it funny.

"He probably works for the Volturi. I can't imagine any of our kind having that... distinct title." Jasper's expression became thoughtful and my family became oddly silent as they considered his words.

Alice alone was shaking her head. "I can't imagine Rolle returning to Marcus," Alice said softly. "You'd think we would have heard him refer to Marcus differently if that were true."

"And he only refers to Marcus as 'the man who killed me'," I added, and then I thought of my earlier opinion of Rolle and his extended absences and was suddenly curious how well they all knew him. "How often did Rolle visit Edward before I joined the family?"

"Not a lot. Maybe a half dozen times?" Alice said, looking at Jasper for confirmation.

He nodded, and added, "But he never stays very long."

"Even when he was around, he mostly just hung out with Edward," Emmett added. "Talking. Playing music."

"Well, that's not entirely true," Alice argued. "He hangs around with Jazz, too." She looked to Jasper for confirmation, who simply shrugged. "Remember that time he heard you playing your guitar?" She turned to me with a smile. "All three of them started playing. It was like our own Cullen Philharmonic."

I returned Alice's smile and noticed Jasper's sad smile in return. He noticed me noticing his reticence.

"I can't be around him too much," Jasper confessed softly. "His emotional barometer runs too extreme. I've never felt this kind of... I dunno, — happiness? Contentment? — from him before, though."

"Whose?" Edward asked suddenly appearing back in the front room.

"Rolle's," Emmett supplied. "Jazz here was just saying it's the happiest he's ever felt from Rolle."

"Do you know what's caused it?" Jasper asked Edward. Though he didn't clarify, we all understood he was asking if Edward had discovered Rolle's unexplained change of character. The only time Edward was unable to read Rolle's mind was when Rolle was particularly 'broken'.

Edward made a noncommittal gesture with his head and shoulder, but remained silent otherwise. He had never been comfortable discussing the inner thoughts of others, trying to give everyone their privacy as best he could. It was one of the things I admired about Edward's character. It spoke volumes about his decency and compassion.

"I'm glad he's here," I said to my husband, closing the distance between us with a smile. I took Edward's hands in mine. "Maybe we could convince you both to play another duet."

"Oh, I should call Esme and ask her to pick up a banjo on their way home. I'd love to hear Jasper and Rolle give us a live performance of 'Dueling Banjos'," Alice said, clapping her hands.

Edward kissed my cheek and turned me in his arms, pressing my back to his chest and winding his arms around my stomach.

"How do you know he plays banjo?" Jasper asked. "I was surprised to know he could play guitar!"

"Anything with strings," Rolle suddenly answered, entering as quietly as Edward had. "Give me thirty minutes and I can play just about anything."

At our shocked and dubious expressions, Rolle met each of our faces and shrugged as if the answer were obvious, which, when he said it, it kinda was. "Insomnia? Remember? Awake twenty-four hours a day for eternity? Lots of time on your hands? God, you guys. Can't you even remember that we don't sleep?"

It was then that Alice and I noticed what he was wearing and our previously curious expressions turned appraising. Rolle was wearing a off-white cable-knit fisherman's sweater of Edward's. I had picked it up for him while Alice and I were out shopping because it so elegantly matched the life-style here in Nova Scotia. The chords of wool and cotton looked dark against Rolle's platinum hair and pale skin, but what was truly shocking was how well it suited him. It was like he'd been born to wear it.

Alice and I exchanged a 'well whaddya know' expression of approval. Even Edward, who looked fantastic in everything in my humble opinion, had not been able to pull off the 'local' look as well as Rolle.

Noticing our stares, Rolle's expression changed to one of puzzled concern. "What?" he asked, looking down at himself and checked to make sure his zipper was up. Then ran his hands down the sweater to figure out what was wrong. "Edward loaned these to me. Don't they fit?"

Alice began giggling. "It's nothing. You look fine, Rolle. I just expect you to start singing the Gorton's Fisherman jingle."

"Or Old Spice," I added.

"We were just talking about your music," Jasper said. "Bella wants you and Edward to play another duet."

"Easily done," Rolle answered, then whispered too loudly to Edward, "Don't worry. I won't show you up in front of your wife."

Edward did not seem to take offense to his words, but instead wrapped his arms tighter around me.

"How do you do that anyway?" I asked. "How do you make it look so easy to come up with one song after another like that?"

Rolle considered me a long time and ran a hand over his damp hair with a shrug before he answered.

"You know sometimes when you're walking and a glimmer will catch your eye, but when you stop to see what it was, you can't find it again?"

"That happens to me all the time!" Emmett admitted enthusiastically.

Rolle turned and grinned at him. "Well, there's really something there. It's still there even when you stop to look at it. You just can't see it any more because you're not in the right spot, or your mind is too focused on finding it instead of seeing it. So you can't see it. It was just a glimmer.... like, a little truth. "

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

"That's how I write songs. Every song has a little glimmer in it and I build the song around it: it might be words, it might be chords... The glimmer is my beginning: it could be something I've seen, something I've experienced, some thought or dream. Sometimes it's a personal insight I have about someone or something they're going through themselves.

"I guess I'm a kind of scavenger, gathering up bits of life and trying to turn them into something cathartic, something that helps people make sense of the world. Sometimes I wonder who might hear the glimmer, who might care enough to stop and go back to look for it again. Or maybe they hear another kind of glimmer, something that touches them that I hadn't expected."

I felt Edward hide a smile against my shoulder, and his thumbs traced little circles against my sides.

I thought about the songs that Rolle had played for us that night so long ago. I remembered one song in particular that I felt was written as a message to Edward and realized immediately that I had heard Rolle's glimmer.

"So what brings you to Nova Scotia?" Emmett asked suddenly changing topics.

Rolle shrugged. "You guys."

"How'd you know where we were?" Jasper asked. After being family for so long, I recognized the strange expression on my brother's face.

Rolle shrugged again. "I just knew."

The blank innocence of his answer sounded like the truth, but I found myself wondering what Jasper was thinking. Edward must have been wondering the same thing but he could easily get that information for himself. I felt him tense.

"Jasper," Edward said softly. He gave his brother a nearly indistinguishable look and Jasper dropped whatever it was.

Rolle apparently missed the silent family exchange and was still making easy conversation. "Did you guys know the Busker's Festival is going on this week down on the waterfront?" He smiled widely at Edward. "I heard part of it on my way here. There's supposed to be open mic on four stages all week," he added suggestively to my husband, then looked at Jasper. "Kill two birds with one stone? Whaddya say?"

Edward laughed and I could feel him shaking his head. "Not exactly low-profile," he said making Rolle frown, obviously disappointed.

"You're all not in high school again, are you?" he asked of us.

"Community college," I answered. "We did the high school thing in Montana before we came here."

Rolle took a seat in Esme's wooden rocking chair. "What was in Montana?"

It was as if a silent signal had been sent to all of us that he wanted to know all about what we had been doing since leaving Forks, and we took seats in the front room with him. Unlike the family room at the back of the house, this room was well suited to just lounging and talking. It was, in fact, the 'family meeting room' when called for.

"Esme bid on a job to restore an old historic building along the Lewis and Clark trail and turn it into a B and B for the two-hundredth anniversary," Alice said. "We had the most fun helping her find the right period pieces."

Jasper, who had joined Alice on the loveseat, turned to her suddenly. "You know, you never did explain how you found that Thomas Gooch painting. Esme was beside herself."

"Oh, that," she answered, waving her hand, "that was just ebay."

"I thought that's where you found the silver tobacco case," Jasper said.

"No, that was me," I chimed in, enjoying the easy reminiscing with my family, but still wondering what actually brought Rolle back to us after all this time. And what was the exchange between Edward and Jasper about.

"She had you all searching for stuff, huh?" Rolle asked. "Sounds like a two hundred year old treasure hunt."

"There are a lot of antique stores along US-12, so we just went for a drive," Alice explained. "Did you know that silly road runs from Aberdeen in Washington all the way to downtown Detroit?"

Rolle was smiling as he nodded. "Right down by the old Tiger stadium. Yeah, I know. I love spending time in the great lakes."

"I wonder why?" Emmett teased rhetorically. Rolle just smiled.

"Is Carlisle practicing or teaching this time?" our guest asked instead.

"Teaching," Edward answered from beside me where he had perched on the arm of the davenport. "You know how he loves working in a hospital, but he needed a bit of a break."

As Edward answered, the mood in the room shifted subtly as we each thought about why our father-figure needed that time away. I could tell that Rolle had noticed and questioning concern creased his brow, but he did not ask.

"What about you?" I asked Rolle before the unease could linger. "What have you been up to?"

Rolle shrugged and his eyes dropped. "Just trying to stay out of trouble," he answered the floor.

Emmett reached across the arm of his chair and lightly punched Rolle's shoulder. "Not working for you, huh?" he joked.

Rolle shrugged again with a weak chuckle and looked up, scanning our faces quickly. I glanced at Jasper to see if Rolle's emotional barometer, as Jasper had called it, was still holding steady, but his attention was trained on Alice who was tracing his thumb with her fingertip.

"Hey, tell me, Rolle," Emmett continued. "When you're out there swimming around, have you ever found sunken treasure?"

"I've found wrecks," he confirmed, "but I've never really poked around looking for a treasure chest, if that's what you mean."

"Really? Why not?" Emmett asked confused. "Man, if I found an old shipwreck, the first thing I'd look for is a treasure."

Rolle laughed now. "Why? You don't need the money."

"No, no... not for anything like that. It would just be cool. What about canons? Ever find the old canons?"

Laughing now through his nose, Rolle nodded. "Yeah, lots of canons. Couple of ship's bells, some deck prisms, lots of old galley plates, anchor chain, dead-eyes..."

"Dead-eyes?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"It's a wooden disk that has holes in it to help put more tension on the shrouds. When all the lines have rotted away, it looks a lot like the face of a skull."

I nodded understanding only half of what he said. "Okay, wooden disks I get, and skulls I get... what's a shroud? I can't tell if you're talking shipwreck stuff or funeral stuff."

"It's a sail," Rolle said with a chuckle. "Here's a bit of trivia for you," he added, then looked around the room addressing all of us. "How many ropes are on a sailing vessel?"

Edward snickered and Rolle glared at him. "No giving away the answer, you thought thief."

Edward held up his hands in surrender but his smile remained.

"A hundred," Emmett shouted like it was a speed test.

Grinning, Rolle only shook his head.

"Okay," Jasper relented. "How many masts?"

"This isn't twenty questions, you plebe!" Rolle tossed back.

"But there would be more sails if there were masts," he argued.

"It's a trick question," I said aloud without realizing it. Edward slid his hand across my back and tugged me to him with proud and smug expression.

I had to laugh as Rolle's face puckered in disapproval. He squinted at me suspiciously.

"It has to be a trick question," I explained, "or you would have told us that already."

Rolle huffed. "Fine. There are no ropes on any sailing ship."

"No, no," Emmett argued. "There's ropes all over the place. Even on those ships in a bottle."

"Not ropes. Lines. They're called lines, and depending on what they do they're could be called halyards or sheets. Halyards are lines that raise the sails, and sheets are lines that control direction." He turned back to me again. "You wrap the line through the deadeye and it acts like a block and tackle."

"See, now I think you're just making up words to impress us because Edward dressed you up like some old maritime sailor," Alice tossed back.

"Yeah, maybe I was a Viking in a past life," Rolle said laughing with us.

"Oh my God, look what the dog dragged in," came Rosalie's voice from the front door, greeting Rolle with the same words Emmett had.

Rolle was up in a flash and greeted her with a smile. "Rose, you're more beautiful than ever." He kissed her fingers. "When are you going to dump that lump of a bear and run away with me?"

Rosalie pulled back in shock at Rolle's obvious change in character, but happily accepted the compliment and flirted right back. "When you're serious."

"Hey!" Emmett cried, joining in their teasing. He got up and pulled Rose to him roughly. "You'll have to fight me for her."

"Rose isn't serious, Emmett," Alice chimed in. "She'd never leave you for Rolle, because he'd haul all her clothes to his secret lair at the bottom of the ocean."

Rose seemed to consider that and then shrugged at Rolle in apology. "She's right. I didn't think about that. Guess I'll stay with Yogi the Lump."

"HA!" Emmett declared. "Dry land, one. McDrippy van Wrinkle, zero!" Then he pulled Rose close and kissed her hello.

Jasper started laughing and muttering "Yogi and McDrippy" to himself.

"Mister van Wrinkle, if you please," Rolle corrected.

"Rolle was just trying to talk us into going down to the Busker's festival tonight," Emmett told Rose.

"Carlisle and Esme will be home shortly," Alice informed us. "Maybe we could all go out together."

Edward slid his hand into my hair and threaded his fingers in to rest against the back of my neck. When I looked up at him, his eyes were questioning. I nodded, happy with the idea of spending the evening with everyone at the festival and eager to spend time with this new facet of our old friend.


	8. Chapter 8 Explanations

**Antithesis, Chapter 8**

After Carlisle and Esme returned home, we had agreed that a night out together would be fun. The rest of us drifted to our rooms to change for the evening and we left Rolle was answering Charlisle and Esme's questions about swimming under the ice and what icebergs were like deep below the surface.

Edward sat at the desk in our room watching me getting ready. He had only changed his shirt and shoes for the evening and was ready long before I was. I knew Alice would frog-march me back into my closet if I didn't put enough thought into my attire for our night on the town.

"You don't have to wait for me," I told him when I glanced over and spied him watching me patiently.

"Oh, good," he said as he got up and walked across the room to me instead going to the bedroom door to join the others in the family room.

He gently pulled me around by my elbow as I was trying to get dressed and kissed me ardently, running his hands over my arms and shoulders. Half-dressed, I lost my breath in the wake of his tender ministrations. There was no distinction in my mind between his slow low-burning touch or the urgent scorching ones. Both left me reeling and weak-kneed.

"Weren't you the one that said it was all about balance?" I asked. Edward groaned in complaint against my neck and I heard his muffled — and adorably petulant — lie.

"No."

His hands slid under the sweater I was trying to pull on. I laughed and tried to squirm away. "You are not helping!" I chided him.

"I'm not trying to help," he breathed against my ear before taking it between his lips.

"Edward!" I tried to say his name firmly, but my eyes fluttered closed. "Everyone is waiting for us."

His hands slid down over my hips and pulled me tighter against him. "Can't we change our minds about going? We'd have the house to ourselves."

"That wouldn't be nice," I whispered, but there was no fight left in my voice. I guess it would have helped my case if my hands could stop encouraging him.

"I'm not nice," he said, moving his lips against my skin.

"Yes, you are," I argued back pointlessly and breathlessly. "You're very nice."

"I just need to kiss my wife," he breathed as his lips closed desperately over mine. I moaned lightly into his mouth.

I felt the same way. We were enjoying Rolle's visit, but we had sacrificed our time together for it. My quiet alone time with Edward was as regenerating as sleep had once been. I felt renewed when I was with him. The fingers of my left hand tangled in his hair pulling him closer, deepening our kiss. The other hand rested on his shoulder, pulling him down or pulling me up, I couldn't tell.

Edward chuckled as he obliged and gathered me closer to his chest. "You are not helping," he teased me with my own words.

"Sure I am," I smiled against his lips. "Different kind of help."

With both of us smiling, our lips would not fit together any longer no matter how much we tried.

There was sharp knock on our door, but no voice accompanied it. We both recognized Alice's step, and I knew Edward heard her impatient prodding.

"Thank you, Alice," Edward said to the door.

"Don't you two get started," we could hear her say as she walked back up the hall to the family room.

Smirking at him as he met my eyes, I smoothed his hair back off his temples and opened my mind to him.

_I love you._

His smile softened.

_You've been pretty quiet during his visit._

"Just enjoying everyone's company, love."

I squinted my eyes at him. _I know you better than that. And I know how much you enjoy talking with him. What have you been thinking?_

I saw a mix of emotions play across his face and he leaned forward to rub his nose against mine. "You know, Bella, I love and hate that you read me so well."

_What are you worried about?_

"Something Jasper was troubled by earlier," he sighed as he slid his hand under the back of my sweater again. I could tell by the subtle touch that it was simply a connection he wanted with me, not meant to arouse.

_How Rolle found us_, I thought and knew I was right.

Edward nodded.

_But he's a tracker, right? Of course he'd be able to find us._

"Yes, but it was what Rolle thought at that moment that bothered me." Edward hesitated there and I felt the familiar feeling of his protective nature holding his tongue.

I gave him a purposeful look, and he read it plainly without needing my thoughts to know my mind.

I saw one last moment of debate in Edward's eyes before he confessed, "His thoughts stumbled from being in the moment with us, to his broken side. And he thought, '_I got here first_'."

My mind processed that quickly. _Got here first before who?_

"I don't know."

_Do you trust him?_

Edward did not answer me right away. As I waited for him to respond, I could see it hurt him to have to really think about it.

"I don't know." His words were heavy with guilt.

_Then talk to him._

Edward pressed his forehead to mine with a heavy sigh. I lightly touched my lips to his.

"He's your friend, Edward. Let him explain."

§∞•••∞§

When we got to the family room, we found everyone there except Rosalie. I smiled as I looked at them all. Everyone had dressed up for the evening out. Rolle still wore the fisherman's sweater that suited him so well. Carlisle wore a dark suit and his tie matched the color of Esme's outfit. Alice wore a deep red skirt that matched Jasper's vest. He had left the suit jacket behind. Emmett wore a tuxedo shirt, left unbuttoned at the top and a black leather jacket over it. He looked very GQ.

"You hurried us out here to wait?" Edward asked Alice.

"Look, I can only do so much and not even I can predict what will or won't set Rose off. You know how she is. Nobody can look nicer than her," Alice explained with excessive patience.

I couldn't stop myself from giggling. "Who was the culprit this time? You all look really nice tonight."

Without a word, Alice pointed at Emmett whose grin split his face in two.

"Guess who's getting their clothes ripped off when they get home tonight," he predicted. "Almost makes me want to stay home, but it'll only get better if I make her wait for it a couple hours."

Esme reached out and pushed Emmett's shoulder to let him know she didn't appreciate that sort of talk.

"How long will she be?" Edward asked Alice.

"Twenty minutes at least. She'll figure out the dress she wants pretty quick, but then she'll want to pull up her hair to show off her back."

Edward looked at me and I looked up seeing that he meant to speak to Rolle now written in his eyes. I smiled to encourage him.

He looked across the room at our friend who was sitting on a stool along the wall, swinging his feet in counterpoint. He looked oddly young at that moment. Edward called to him and Rolle glanced up before jumping down and coming over to us.

Edward said nothing but motioned with his head for Rolle to follow, and together we went out the back door towards the garage.

Edward and I had our arms around each other as we descended the steps of the back porch and walked slowly across the yard to the garage. Rolle followed us trailing a step behind.

"You guys look great together, ya know," he said quietly in the night. "Really happy."

"Thank you," Edward answered simply, smiling down at me and pulling me closer.

Edward opened the service door at the side of the garage and held it for me, gesturing Rolle in next. To picture the Cullen garage as a typical dark and oily place was the complete opposite of what it actually was. It was bright, white and as clean as a kitchen inside. Rosalie was very particular about how the garage was kept. The floors were painted with a special glossy paint and the floor under each car had a gentle slope to a drain. Rain, snow and ice all funneled into a tidy location. A workbench ran all along the back of the garage with its own lighting.

Apart from being the 'garage of the future' however, there was also a small desk and chairs just inside the service door and Rose had a computer on the desk there. There had been more than one occasion I had walked in on her having an intense discussion with a parts supplier for one of her many auto projects, the most current of which was an engine mounted on a wheeled stand that she was particularly possessive of. She always referred to it as 'The Rocket', but I was positive it had nothing to do with missiles.

Rolle, on the other hand, appeared to recognize it right away. He whistled in appreciation and ran his hand over it. "A sixty-eight?" he asked, his eyes trained on the red metal.

"Yes. Rose discovered it languishing in a barn," Edward answered.

"I bet she batted her eyes at the guy and got it for a deal," Rolle laughed.

"Free, actually," Edward said and they both laughed. "The poor sot did have the wherewithal to insist that she move it herself, though."

Rolle laughed again. "Oh, wow. Tough break." His tone was sardonic, and even if I didn't know the importance or value of the engine, I could easily understand that the previous owner had no idea what he'd given away.

"Yes, she was rather put out about that. So Emmett and I were called in to make it look like it was an effort to move it."

"Yeah, right. Excuse to check out the boyfriend, I'd bet."

Edward ran his hand over the back of his neck. "Let's just say that I didn't need to know his mind to read the obvious disappointment he felt at the sight of Emmett."

Rolle just smiled, obviously enjoying spending this time with us.

Edward's brow furrowed and I could see he was trying to find a way to delicately approach the topic without flipping Rolle's emotional-stability switch.

"I thought we'd see you at the Chicago Jazz Festival. We've been going every year in the hopes of catching you there again."

Rolle turned to face us and shook his head, before backing up a half of a step and placing his hands on the workbench hefting himself up to sit on it. "I couldn't go."

Edward frowned. "Couldn't go? For the past ten years?"

Rolle's expression was clear and untroubled, and even when his gaze settled on me I saw no regret hidden in his eyes.

"It was for the best," he said at last. "It would have created trouble for you." He shook his head, adding, "I didn't want to be the cause of that."

"How would it have caused trouble?" I asked.

I realized Edward heard Rolle's unspoken answer only a second before he voiced it. His hand tensed on my shoulder.

"Caius is... anxious about your family."

"Caius? Why?" I asked.

"He has a grocery list of reasons. Your numbers, your devotion to one another, your gifts, your connection to the shapeshifters, as well as your many allies..." Rolle rattled off. "Adding Tanya's family to your own makes eight of you into twelve with only a phone call."

Edward's tone was tense, but controlled. "Aro has read my thoughts, as well as Alice's and Carlisle's," he pointed out. "He knows we have no interest in power or political intrigue."

"Which is why I had to stay away," Rolle added softly.

Concern darkened Edward's face. "What? Why?"

Rolle sighed heavily. "I didn't want our friendship to look like an attempt to build Carlisle's own guard. Caius would have seen our association as a threat. He's suspicious enough that so many of you have powerful gifts, but none of you are trackers. And my.... well, reputation... wouldn't have helped matters."

My mouth was hanging open and I couldn't seem to do anything about it. The shock of his news — that despite everything, we were still under the intense scrutiny of the Volturi — left me staggered. All of that, followed by the realization of Rolle's sacrifice on our behalf, a sacrifice unknown to us... to me... when I'd dismissed his intentions of protecting us not once, but twice? My shock warred with my shame.

"B-But you're our friend," I stammered. "You've been Edward's friend for years."

Rolle's head lowered as if he would nod in agreement, but he never raised his chin. "And Aro knows that, too, but someone in their position can only listen to nervous whispers for so long before you start to wonder if there might be truth in them, and Caius has been doing a lot of whispering." Rolle shrugged. "I'm sorry."

"And that's why you're here," Edward realized, obviously thinking back to the stray thought he had heard from Rolle earlier. "The whispers are being acted upon."

"Not… _acted_ on, no," Rolle corrected slowly. "More like 'checked into for peace of mind' kinda thing."

"But with you here, won't that be exactly what he's looking for?" I had to ask.

Rolle's expression was torn. "I don't think it will matter, Bella. They're looking for excuses and reasons to worry about Carlisle's influence. They're afraid of him because they don't understand him."

Rolle lifted his chin and met Edward's eyes. I looked between them, then back again. Whatever was going unspoken made Edward's eyes harden.

"Edward," I said more sharply than I meant to. "Don't you dare. Both of you just stop right now." I glared at Rolle now as well. "If you have something to say, you say it out loud. I am not playing this game any more. This is my family, too."

Rolle met my accusation with a level and appraising expression. He opened his mouth to speak when Edward cut across him.

"Rolle...." Edward said in a dark tone.

"Stop!" I spun on my husband, holding a warning finger at him. "Edward, so help me, I'm not doing this again. We're in this equally."

"It doesn't mean anything, Bella," Edward argued. "If the Volturi are worried about us, they'll use any excuse to investigate us or keep tabs on our activities."

"If it doesn't mean anything, then I can know what it is," I snapped back, then spun on Rolle again. "So spit it out."

Rolle evaluated me again in silence and glanced at Edward, obviously uncomfortable for coming between us. He sighed softly and addressed me directly.

"You're right, Bella, I might be the pebble that starts the landslide, but you're the avalanche they're worried about."

I fell back a step as if he had pushed me. "Me?" I gasped. My mind was spinning. Why would the Volturi be worried about me?

"Our gifts grow over time as we learn to control them — they become more powerful. The Volturi know what you can do. They've seen you negate the effects of the most powerful agents in their guard. Even though your gift is defensive, it's more effective than they ever imagined possible." Rolle shrugged, looking apologetic. "It's simple numbers. At the core there are eight Cullens; four with powerful gifts. There are only three Volturi brothers, and Aro's gift is the only one that carries a punch, and that's only if he can touch you. You alone make the Volturi guard no more dangerous than a rabble."

"But the guards..." I stammered, and Edward was at my side, wrapping his arms around me.

"...Are bullies who desire power by associating with the powerful," Rolle said finishing my sentence. "They aren't bound by love. They're bound by opportunity.

"They call themselves guards," Rolle tired to explain. "You call yourselves family. If the three brothers fell, there's nothing to hold the guard together. They'll start fighting among themselves vying for the top spot. Not you. You're all bound by love and respect. If anything — knock on wood," and he rapped the top of the workbench, "ever happened to Carlisle, you wouldn't all drift away into the wind. You'd still stay together, because that's what families do. Families don't end. They grow."

I could feel myself start to shiver, my mind reeling that the Volutri would place so much emphasis on me. I tried to think of a way I could reassure them that we weren't interested in anything they did. We weren't interested in power. All we wanted was to be left alone. The Volturi never cared about Carlisle or his family until I joined them. I was the tipping point. I was nothing and yet I made the difference between ignoring the Cullens and scrutinizing them.

"Bella," Edward whispered tracing the back of his fingers over my cheek. "Don't you dare," he repeated my words back to me, but gentler than I had delivered them. "You are not the reason or sole cause for any of this and you are not allowed to blame yourself." He pressed his lips to my ear, whispering, "This is why I didn't want Rolle to speak his thoughts out loud. I knew you would do this to yourself."

"But..." I couldn't seem to make my body move. I was frozen.

"No!" he insisted softly, giving me a little shake. "We're in this equally. I won't let you play the 'What if' game because I could easily steal it away from you. What if I had never left you and you never came to Italy to save me? What if you'd never met the Volturi? What if I never changed you and your powers never had the opportunity to express?" He pressed his nose into my hair. "We're on this path because we made choices and we arrived here _together_. We'll deal with the present and not waste energy on the past."

In my heart, I knew he was right, but it was hard to let go of my guilt in causing even more trouble for Carlisle's family.

"Isabella Marie!" Edward snapped, giving me a harder shake. "Do _not_ refer to Carlisle's family as if you are not part of it!"

My head snapped up in shock as I stared at Edward. I hadn't even realized that I had opened my mind to him until that very moment. It was like I had flung my hand out to grasp at whatever I could reach to keep myself from falling, and my mind had reached out to the one who I knew would catch me.

Edward's eyes were not hard or angry as he looked at me. He could hear every self-condemning thought that shot across my mind and he stared down each one of them until there were no other challengers. I felt the tension fall away under his unwavering eyes and I blinked. I nodded with a sigh and put my cheek on his shoulder.

"That's why I came," Rolle said. I'd almost forgotten he was still there. "I made a promise to a couple of heartsick, love-struck goofballs. It's about time I earned my keep."


	9. Chapter 9 Motivations

**Antithesis, Chapter 9**

When the rest of the family joined us at the cars, I silently told Edward that I wanted Jasper to drive with us. I wanted his healing balm on my now frayed nerves. Everyone was so excited about our night out together I simply did not want to ruin it.

Truth be told, if I were still human, my stomach would have been sick with anxiety. Even as a vampire, it felt pretty close to the same thing. I couldn't stop wondering what the Volturi would do to find their 'peace of mind.' The least objectionable would be to simply ask to visit us, but I couldn't picture any of them asking Carlisle if they could stop over for a chat. If I understood anything about Caius, I couldn't imagine him wanting to tip his hand to make us aware that they were still suspicious of us. Aro might have offered us that pleasantry if he could just ask to see our thoughts without explaining why. I knew if he could know our intentions it would immediately placate him, or at least it would placate him until the whispers got to him again.

I walked through the festival without paying much attention to it though I was acutely aware of Edward's concerned eyes following me. I felt Rolle's eyes on me often as well, and caught his rueful expression more than once.

Thankfully, Jasper's help allowed me to enjoy most of the evening without attracting too much concern from my family over my despondence. I talked and laughed with them, but I knew Edward could see that I was distracted with my thoughts.

We had arrived late for the festival. It wrapped up daily around ten, but the sidewalks were still crowded. Most of the crowds were younger people determined to make the party atmosphere last as long as possible. Other small groups were under-aged drinkers, equally as determined to express their bravado and rebellion. The city stayed brightly lit as the various stages and booths were closed and equipment put away into storage lockers. Extra policemen and festival guards roamed the streets among the night owls who refused to leave. Despite the lack of formal festival activities, the evening seemed almost as energetic as the planned activities had been.

Rolle started picking up various bits of trash and debris, tossing it from hand to hand until he had enough that started him juggling. Without a word, a capped empty pop bottle came soaring toward us. Edward caught it with his left hand and tossed it back, only to be tossed a ball of tinfoil. This too went back, and in its place, came flying a rather large shoe.

Edward lobbed this back to Emmett who stood in the street with only one shoe on. Laughing, Emmett threw the shoe to Jasper that arched in the air past a wallet and a makeup compact that were careening in two other directions.

Suddenly, the entire family was laughing and Jasper, Edward, Rolle, Rosalie and Emmett were tossing at least a dozen items in the air to each other. They slowly spread out and widened their impromptu ring.

"Bella!" Rolle called to me, tossing the wallet.

I caught it easily enough, but then wasn't sure what to do with it.

"Throw it to Rose," Carlisle encouraged me, seeing me stare at it nonplussed.

As I tossed it to Rose, another object was caught in my peripheral vision and I caught that, too. Jasper had thrown me Rosalie's makeup compact.

"Here," Edward said, so I tossed it to him as he threw me a bottle of water.

I juggled with them, one item at a time, when Emmett finally shouted, "Where did my shoe go?"

Our little juggling stunt came to a quick stop as everyone looked around for the shoe, looking completely innocent.

"Who's got my wallet?" Jasper asked now.

"Aal-lice," Carlisle crooned casting suspicion on her.

She held up her hands with a laugh. "I don't have them!"

Edward was the one who gave up the culprit. A look of bewildered shock bloomed on his face as he slowly turned to look at Esme.

Our mother stood elegantly poised with a perfectly mom-ish smile on her face of quiet love and contentment.

"Esme?" Edward blurted in disbelief.

"Hello, dear," was all she said as if he had simply greeted her.

Carlisle took two steps to her side. "Do you know where the boys' things are, dear?"

She turned and smiled at her husband. "Why whatever are you talking about?"

Edward's mouth fell open. Even during my few years with them, Esme was not known to participate in family antics such as these.

"You complete and utter scam artist!" Edward accused with a delighted grin on his face. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. Look at you standing there in all innocence."

Esme's façade broke and she grinned winking at him. "Tattle-tale," she teased, and the wallet and shoe went flying into the air to their rightful owners.

Carlisle's low and warm laughter surrounded and infected all of us as he hugged and kissed his wife, enjoying watching her play with the others in the family.

I began to feel better as the evening wore on, and I stopped wondering if it was simply that I had resolved myself or if Jasper was still helping me.

As Emmett had predicted, Rosalie grew distracted as the night wore on. Even though she was absolutely stunning in the dress she had finally decided upon — a black number with an elegant bodice and up-swept skirt that showed off her legs and turned the heads of every man we walked by — it was the less-than-discreet glances at Emmett from women that I think pushed her over the edge. When we turned toward the docks and the shadows of masts from the tall-ships wavering in the night sky, Rosalie took Emmett by the elbow and muttered something about seeing us at home. We heard Emmett's laughter for a full minute longer as she quick-stepped him back toward their car.

There were more than fifteen ships anchored in the harbor and only three of them were docked along the pier. The organization running the festival had built staircases on the boardwalk to make it easier for people to get on and off these boats, but the gangplanks and rope handrails were pulled in for the evening. Each boat had strung lights through their rigging and just as we were walking by the first ship, the lights turned off and a lone deckhand called out that it the ship was secure and rang a bell twice, paused, then twice again. The tone of the bell was softly muted as if the striking hammer were rapped in cloth. The double-ring of the bell kept going and I realized he was marking the time. After twelve double-strikes, that I could now hear echoing from the other ships, everything grew quiet. Another ship along the pier also turned out there twinkle lights.

We strolled along the boardwalk while Rolle spoke softly about each ship we walked by. He turned out to be an amazing font of knowledge about each and every one of them. He knew their crew compliments, their history, their dimensions... Some were cargo vessels, some were sailing schools, one was a flagship of the Royal Netherlands Naval College!

He chattered away idly describing the differences between square-rigged ships and traditional-rigged ships. He talked about Brigs and Brigatines, and Barks and Barkentines. He pointed out a sloop anchored off shore and answered Alice's questions about the differences that had to do with sails and masts, and how various kinds of sails were used — some for stability, others for forward momentum.

It was fascinating, to a point, but I didn't share his passion for sailing. I simply enjoyed the night air, the salty breeze of the ocean, and the gentle ring of a harbor buoy's bell rolling in the distance. It made me feel melancholy and wistful even though I was surrounded by my family. When we had walked to the end of the dock, Carlisle and Esme took a seat on the bench that overlooked the dark rippling bay. Lights from around the harbor danced over the surface like stars.

I glanced at Carlisle and wondered how many evenings he had spent like this in his three hundred plus years. It was just one more day among many, learning, existing... How many things had he found passion in to spur him into the next dawn? And I suddenly realized how long he had been alone, living each day without the distraction of family or friends to help make the time pass.

"Carlisle would know," Rolle's voice suddenly pierced my musings and I turned my attention back to the group.

"You came to the new country when? Eighteen hundreds?" Rolle asked.

"Nineteen oh four," Carlisle answered. "I arrived at Ellis Island aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse."

"Right," Rolle grinned. "Triple reciprocating engines on twin screws."

Carlisle laughed. "I really don't know, I'm afraid. All I can say about it is that made an awful lot of noise."

"Had the distinction of being the largest passenger ship for the first two years of her life," Rolle said wistfully as he glanced out to the mouth of the harbor into the open sea. "Funny, that," he added softly.

"What is?" Esme asked.

Rolle shook his head with a shrug. "Just made me think is all. Being here. Triple reciprocating engines. Twin screws. Biggest ship.... Made me think about the Titanic and all those bodies being brought back here aboard the Mackay-Bennet."

"Tsk. That's right," Esme whispered. "There's a maritime museum down on Lower Water Street."

"And the graveyard on Kempt," Carlisle added. Over a hundred and twenty victims were laid to rest there."

"So many souls," Rolle murmured staring out at the black water.

"How do you know so much about ships, Rolle?" Jasper asked, obviously sensing Rolle's barometer start to drop. "Is it just a hobby, or did you work on ships...?"

"Hmm?" Rolle asked, apparently not hearing the question.

"He asked how you know so much about sailing and ships," Edward repeated, and I could tell between the two of them they were trying to distract Rolle from whatever dark path his thoughts had taken. "Did you work on one?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah, for a while."

We waited for more of an answer, but it wasn't forthcoming.

"That's it?" Edward prompted and I saw a shadow pass over his eyes in the dim light of the waning moon.

I couldn't see Rolle's eyes or his expression with his back to me as he looked out to sea. Edward slid his hand into mine and when I looked up at him, I could tell by his expression that we were losing Rolle again.

"Being at sea is like nothing else you can find on land," Rolle said softly, his voice nothing more than another breeze on the wind. "It's addictive. It challenges you at every turn. You can't lose focus for even a second or she'll turn all her spite on you. Keeps your mind from...."

And his words trailed off. I felt myself frown sadly for him. It was such a shame to end the night like this when we'd had so much fun together.

"Carlisle?" Rolle asked suddenly.

Carlisle looked up just as surprised as the rest of us that Rolle's mind seemed to still be in the moment with us. "Yes?"

"Can I ask you something personal? You can say no."

Carlisle looked mildly uncomfortable. "I'll try to answer if I can," he promised.

Rolle stuffed his hands in his pocket and turned to face him. "Why aren't you practicing medicine?" he asked gently.

I knew instantly from our conversation early that afternoon where his question came from. Edward had admitted that Carlisle had needed a break. I didn't understand the redirection in Rolle's thought process, though, to jump suddenly from his growing ennui to this.

Carlisle's expression was obliging but sad as Esme took his hand in hers, caressing his fingers with her own.

"I was at the hospital in Montreal when the terrorist attack occurred." He shook his head. "It was just too much to experience and feel so helpless."

It had made the world news three years ago. One hundred and twenty-eight people had been killed that day, and over four-hundred wounded. Like the United States, Canada had been plunged onto the terrorism list the day three men walked into the busy lunch-time hospital cafeteria and sacrificed themselves for their religion. It had been Carlisle's first day. We hadn't even unpacked the moving boxes in Montreal the day of the attack. He worked for forty-seven hours straight before he simply walked away from it all. None of the hospital administrators questioned him when we drove away from it all, the hospital, our new lives, the house... It had been a horrific day for all of us. We knew Carlisle was all right. It would take more than that to kill him, but seeing our stalwart father figure walking through the front door covered in soot and the blood of the wounded with a vacant expression on his face left us all sharply rattled.

He never spoke of that day, and Edward never repeated anything he garnered from Carlisle's thoughts. So we were all tense that he was speaking of it now, even in vague terms.

"We follow a peaceful path because we believe it is the right thing to do," he was still speaking. "It boggles the mind to think that our value of human life is greater than those who are burdened so lightly with it."

Rolle's head tipped to the side as he regarded Carlisle. His expression was an odd mix of calculating wonder, disbelief and respect.

"C'est bon par ces temps lourds, ça semble fait exprès," Rolle whispered to himself though we all heard him.

I'd been in this region of Canada enough to know he was speaking French, but had no idea what he said. I looked at Edward, and noticed that Jasper and Alice were also looking at him.

"It's good for these heavy times, it seems done on purpose," Edward translated for us. "It's from a poem, called _Vêpres rustiques_."

Rolle glanced at Edward and smiled in appreciation. He took a deep breath and let it out with a gusty sigh, then moved to sit beside Esme on the bench. He leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. His hands were pressed together, palm to palm, as if he were praying.

"You're a good man, Carlisle," Rolle said quietly. "You've become a magnet and a sanctuary for good people." He looked over at Jasper and Alice.

Esme reached out and ran her hand through Rolle's hair as if she were comforting her own son. He looked over at her with such a tender smile that it was impossible for me to believe he was a tracker, that he was anything at all like James… that he was capable of murder.

"You've been a good father to others." Rolle took Esme's hand into his own as he looked over at Edward and I. "And you've been a good friend to me," Rolle added, shaking his head as if he didn't deserve to have our friendship.

"Rolle, tell him," Alice whispered. "It's all right. He won't blame you."

Rolle dropped Esme's hand and pulled his arms close to his side.

Alice surely would have seen our conversation with Rolle in the garage only a few short hours ago. She slid closer to Jasper and rested her head on his chest as he wrapped his arm over her slim shoulders.

"Rolle?" Carlisle prompted gently.

Rolle was frozen where he sat and was quiet a long time. He wouldn't meet anyone's gaze. When he finally spoke, he looked guilty of something but I had no idea what.

"They won't leave you alone. Caius won't let them. It isn't right. You deserve to be treated better than this. You're a good man." Rolle stole a glance at Carlisle from the corner of his eye then looked quickly away again. "I didn't want to just do it without talking to you first."

What?? I was stunned. Do what? Edward gasped beside me.

"Do what?" Carlisle asked calmly, though I'd heard his overly controlled doctor voice before to know he was as anxious as we all were.

"Caius will keep up his despicable whispering campaign until he convinces the others that all of you need to be dealt with, or until one of them tries to take the matter into their own hands in order to gain favor."

"What are you going to do, Rolle?" Carlisle asked again.

Rolle leaned back and took a deep breath before facing Carlisle. "Stop the whispers. I want to do this for you. For all of you. To protect you. I'll stop Caius. C'est bon par ces temps lourds, ça semble fait exprès,"he repeated.

Carlisle thought about Rolle's offer but lowered his chin to his chest and slowly started shaking his head. "I can't ask you to do that."

"You don't have to ask me," Rolle said rather pointedly.

"Maybe we should consider it," Edward said.

I spun in his arms with my mouth hanging open. "What?"

"I agree," Jasper said.

I stared at Jasper with the same incredulous shock. I quickly looked to Carlisle, hoping to see my own expression on his face. He was looking from Jasper to Edward, but not with the instant outrage that I was certainly feeling.

"We can't," I said. "You can't. Carlisle…?"

His eyes captured mine, but he said nothing.

"Carlisle," Jasper said slowly, and Carlisle turned to face him. "We can be preemptive. If Rolle can help…"

Still Carlisle gave no outward indication of what he was thinking. But that didn't stop Edward from knowing.

"No, there's no difference than if Rolle came here to tell us it was fiat accompli."

"But it's not," Carlisle maintained. "So there is a difference, because if I tell him I don't want this thing done, he won't do it." He turned suddenly to look at Rolle. "You won't, will you," he said certainly.

Rolle looked deflated. "I won't go against your wishes," he admitted heavily.

Carlisle turned back to Edward. "So there is a difference because I can stop it. If I let this happen, I'm as guilty as if I had done it myself. Rolle is merely the gun. I would be the finger on the trigger."

Rolle stood suddenly and spun away, not facing us. Maybe unable to face us. Carlisle rose and walked over to stand behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not a gun," Rolle whispered, his voice broken.

"No, you're not," Carlisle said with so much compassion that there was never a doubt in his mind. "And I would never ask you to be one. The fact that you…" His voice faltered a moment. "That you have so much respect for me, that you would ask first," he said thickly. He shook his head and turned Rolle around by the shoulder to face him. "I will always try to live up to that. And I will always be grateful that you care as much about protecting my family as I do."

Slowly, Carlisle pulled Rolle toward him and embraced him. Rolle's eyes went wide and he stiffened at the contact. He looked directly at me over Carlisle's shoulder and I tried to smile encouragement at him as I clutched at Edward's hand.

Rolle swallowed nervously and hesitantly raised his arms as if he would return the hug, but as his arms fell his face pinched in pain, unable to accept Carlisle's affection. I felt the crushing reminder that Rolle believed he was somehow an agent of hell, that he was unworthy of love and was condemned to suffer his existence utterly alone.

Carlisle seemed to understand this and I saw him nod briefly and tighten his arms before letting Rolle go. Carlisle held him at arm's length a moment.

"You will always have a place with us," he told Rolle. At the sadness in Rolle's eyes, he added with a shake, "Whether you think you deserve it or not."


	10. Chapter 10 Hesitations

**Antithesis, Chapter 10**

Rolle returned with us that night and repeated to the rest of the family everything he had told us in the garage. Their reactions had been the same as Edward's; dismay that even after knowing our minds, Aro could be so easily swayed by Caius' paranoid imagination. Despite knowing this, however, Carlisle refused to take Rolle up on his offer to deal with the problem for us.

Alice sat with me, holding my hand. I could see the questions and concern in her eyes after Rolle told us again that Caius' largest fears were about me.

The room became eerily quiet — even for a house full of vampires — as everyone processed the information.

"Have you seen anything, Alice?" Esme gentle voice broke the interminable silence like a worried caress.

She sighed heavily with a shrug. "I try to keep an eye on them from time to time, but I haven't seen anything about them planning to come here."

"There's some luck then," Emmett added. "Any idea when they plan on making a move?" he asked Rolle.

He responded with a silent shake of his head.

"Do they even know where we are now?" Rosalie asked. "I mean, even Rolle went to Forks to look for us, right? If they assume we're still there, like he did, that would give us even more warning."

"Maybe," Edward replied. "If they assume we haven't left they may go straight there, but they know we have a pattern of only staying in a place for short periods of time. Demetri may just assume we've moved on and beginning tracking us from Italy, not wait until he's in Forks to see if we're still there."

Rolle, who had been doleful since Carlisle refused to use him to protect us, suddenly grew intensely interested in the conversation.

"I'll watch them more closely," Alice assured us.

"We should start making plans for the worst, though, in case we need to move on quickly," Jasper added.

"I'll set up a contract with the moving company if we have to leave suddenly," Esme said with a resigned tone.

Unless something better presented itself, like Esme's dream job in Montana, we always had the next two locations planned for the family in case anything unexpected happened that would separate us. The first time I was included in one of _those_ types of family meetings, I was amazed at how prepared the Cullens were for almost any contingency. There were already plans in place for where we would go, what banks to use, what names to use, what roles we would play. There were three such plans for each move along with cell phones and safe places to meet. We had moving companies ready to swoop in and move our things to storage lockers on a moment's notice. And we had enough cash around the house to buy all four couples a place of their own if that was required, along with all the paperwork to explain the money trail along the way. We not only had to protect ourselves from other vampires, but also from overly inquisitive humans. Every fake identity we had consisted of a long and intricate history to explain everything, as well as documents to back them up. The internet was making that part easier and easier. Jasper was a whiz at coming up with the simplest and most unobtrusive backgrounds that showed us to be simple people with slightly unusual reasons for being together. He was so good at it, in fact, that we had identities already planned for twenty years out, each 'life' starting at infancy with baby announcements, all the way up to our teenage years and school records, ready to post to the internet every few months with the click of a single button.

"Who's Demetri?" Rolle asked.

"He's one of the Volturi guard. A tracker," Carlisle answered.

"I've never seen his equal," Edward added.

That seemed to interest him even more. "Edward, do you know how it works? Have you seen it?" he asked laying a finger along his temple.

"How he's able to track? No, I haven't seen him actually tracking anyone to know how it works, but there were times when I was near him that I felt as if his mind were somehow... I'm not sure how to describe it," he faltered, rolling his hand around as his brow furrowed. "Like he was somehow _linking_ himself to me, like his mind was _tasting_ my presence."

Rolle's expression darkened a moment, then grew thoughtful.

"Bella's shield can hide her from him, so I'm certain whatever he uses for tracking is some kind of mental process," Edward continued.

"Rolle?" Carlisle prompted. "What is it?"

Rolle's expression was still clouded. "Nothing. Just wondering how different he is. Most of the trackers I've met have a kind of innate ability to find what they're looking for: sometimes it's an even greater sense of smell than we already have, other times it's an ability to guess where people are going based on patterns. Sometimes, they're just really good about using every day resources: news, internet, police reports..."

"How do _you_ do it?" Jasper asked.

Rolle looked at him and shrugged. "I just think about the one I'm trying to find," he shrugged again while shaking his head.

"Do you have to have met them before?" Jasper pressed.

"No," Rolle admitted freely. "Helps, though."

"Is it easier if you know them better?" Jasper asked again.

Now Rolle looked annoyed. "Yeah, actually, it helps a lot. I can keep my addressbook up to date then and don't have to guess at why I can do what I do."

"Please," Carlisle interrupted them softly but sternly, and shook his head at Jasper to have him stop interrogating Rolle.

Jasper's exasperation fed out to the rest of us before he reigned it back with a huff. Alice got up and crossed the room to him curling into his arms. We all understood his dread that the Volturi would renew their infatuation with her because of her gift.

Rolle shook his head again, and mumbled an apology, then his tone became pleading. "Carlisle, please..."

"No, Rolle," Carlisle stopped him before he could continue. "I would never ask you to do it, or condone it being done in my name." He looked intently at Rolle. "You're better than that."

I leaned against Edward and closed my eyes. I couldn't stand to see the look on Rolle's face at Carlisle's praise. It was so obvious he wanted to believe he was a good man, and so completely incapable of considering it possible.

I wanted the Rolle back who could laugh and joke and sing.

Edward squeezed my fingers and I pressed into him, opening my mind to him.

_He's stuck again, isn't he?_

Edward let out a slow breath and pressed a kiss against my brow.

_Can you help him?_

I felt his shoulder shrug behind my back.

I remembered being on the dock and Rolle mumbling 'I'm not a gun' and his admission that he had avoided the things he loved doing just to protect us. _ I can't stand to see him like this. Please, Edward, please just take him outside. Let him run. Let him swim. Let him ramble about music. Just do something to help him escape._

I felt his cheek rest on my hair and he nodded. When Edward stood, Rolle looked at him and without a word the two of them left.

"I'm sorry, Bella," Jasper said. "I know he came here to help. I shouldn't have put him on the spot like that. I'm just...."

"I know." I could hear the gloom in my own voice.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

"I'm sorry, too, Bella," Emmett said. "Carlisle," he added. "I'm sorry that I agree with Jasper: be pre-emptive for a change. I know it's wrong but I'd let Rolle do it. Bella, tell Edward I'm sorry. I know Rolle's his friend and all. I don't mean to be thinking it, but I can't help it"

"He knows, Emmett," I tried to reassure him.

I hated to admit it, not even to myself, but a small part of me agreed with them. I couldn't convince myself that it would solve anything. In fact, I was certain that it would only make matters worse if Rolle took things into his own hands. I was just tired of being afraid. I was durable now, a vampire like Edward, immortal. I wasn't supposed to be afraid all the time.

§∞•••∞§

Rolle hung around the house like a stray dog, never quite coming inside but never far away, either. One moment he was there, the next he was gone only to return the very next day. He would be covered in dried salt most of the time when he returned to us and smelled of the ocean. On one cloudy day he came back smelling of tar and his clothes were ruined with black pitch. When Esme asked him what had happened, he said he'd offered to lend a hand aboard one of the tall ships that had its departure held up due to an unfortunate accident involving some local kids who stole a ski boat and ran into the vessel as they were evading the Coast Guard.

I enjoyed watching Edward spend with Rolle because I felt like I could see what my husband would have been like as a human with a human friend. Nothing they did together was vampire-like at all. They never did anything vampire-fast. They never even hunted together since Rolle's diet was outside the norm, even for us. They just talked and shared insights. They discussed cars, and books, and philosophy, and music... always music.

It was odd seeing the little differences in Edward's behavior around another male vampire that he spent so much time with that was not one of his brothers. With Emmett and Jasper there was always love and respect, but there was also the teasing, wrestling and pointed jibes. Above all, there was a sense of ease and total trust. I wondered if it was because I was his wife that I noticed the change in Edward when he spent time with Rolle. He was happy, eager even, to discuss things with his friend, but there was always a tension across his shoulders and Edward would often get distracted when they were together.

I wasn't surprised that whenever Rolle was near me, so was Edward. At first I thought it was just Edward's way of conveniently spending time with both of us, but I started to suspect there was more to it when I began to notice a pattern. If I was with Alice or Carlisle and Rolle joined us, Edward would be on his heals. If Edward was in the middle of something and I wanted to occupy myself elsewhere, he would stop what he was doing and come with me without hesitation.

It had happened enough that I wanted to test my hunch. I just didn't want to manufacture the opportunity. So I waited until an honest scenario presented itself.

I was sitting on the sofa in our room with Edward's head in my lap and I had just finished reading my latest book from Carlisle's library. I closed it and set it aside then slowly ran my fingers through his hair as he went over the draft of a final exam for one of Carlisle's classes. I was fascinated by the way he would tense the muscles in his jaw while he puzzled out the answers to the questions, and by the way his brow would furrow when he found something wrong. His supple fingers curled around a pencil as he made notes and suggestions in the side margins. I loved watching his hands, especially when they nimbly danced over they keys on his piano... or the way they would twine with my own...

I blinked and chided myself. If I didn't get out of here, he would certainly never finish the exam for Carlisle and he still had four pages to go.

Suddenly, I had my completely honest excuse to see what Edward would do. I knew he had promised to finish this for Carlisle quickly, and I knew if I stayed here with my run-away thoughts, those lovely hands of his would be busy doing something else pretty darn quick!

I bent over and pressed a kiss on his forehead while tapping his shoulder to let me up. Edward moved without question, returning my kiss as he sat up and went back to study the papers in his hand.

I picked up Carlisle's book to return it to his study, and also retrieved a small wooden box that I had found. It had a broken seam that Jasper said he could fix for me, identifying the container as a box for hardtack. He said he'd had a similar one when he was in the war. I wanted to fix it up and give it to Esme for her Lewis and Clark house.

I wasn't even halfway to the door when Edward's voice stopped me.

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere special. I'm just going to put this away," I answered holding up the book, "and hunt up Jasper."

Edward stood and picked up the remaining papers.

"You're done already?" I asked with a frown. I didn't want to be right about my suspicions.

"No, but I can finish it later," he answered, bring the entire lot with him, meaning he was going to finish it now, but in whatever place I would be. "I'll come with you," he added.

Bingo. I was right.

Crap. I was right.

I walked back to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. "Edward, what's wrong?" I asked quietly as my frown deepened.

He tensed and looked at me nonplussed. "What? Nothing's wrong. Why?"

"Edward Cullen don't hide from me," I scolded him gently. "You haven't let me out of your sight in almost two weeks. What's going on?"

I saw him briefly consider lying to me and then just as quickly toss the idea away. His hand came up under my hair and rested against the back of my neck.

"You're not going to let me answer honestly that I just want to be with you, are you," he asked rhetorically.

"I will if you say that is the _only_ reason," I replied. I could tell by the look on his face that it wasn't the only reason. "It's because of Rolle, isn't it." It wasn't a question. "You don't trust him."

"I trust him," Edward argued softly. "Just not with you."

"Edward..." I admonished.

"I can't, Bella. I can't. Not with you," he maintained earnestly. "If I felt at all comfortable that he was stable things might be different, but I know how often — and how violently — his thoughts swing from one spectrum to the other. It happens so frequently that even Alice cannot predict his behavior."

My frown changed from consternation to concern. "Is it really that bad?"

Edward nodded. "I tried finding a pattern, hoping to discover what triggers it, but once I really started paying attention to him, I found it runs far deeper than he ever lets on. Perhaps even deeper than he knows himself."

"Hasn't it been better for him since he's been with us? He seems so much better."

"There are moments..." he began, but shook his head. "But they're more rare than I thought. I wanted to be able to trust him when he first arrived, but I found his mind swinging from one extreme to the other so rapidly in only one minute, Jasper had leave the room. And yet, last week, he was stable and happy for over eighteen hours. The night of the campfire, remember?"

I nodded, remembering that night vividly. I rested my head on Edward's shoulder with my forehead against his neck, needing the intimacy and connection to him that it brought. Rolle had been in rare form, laughing and joking and playing a guitar duet with Jasper. Emmett brought his harmonica, and Carlisle played the spoons. We took turns singing old folk songs all night long, just laughing and playing and sharing stories.

"The next day he left and was gone for two days," I added in a whisper.

"And when he came back, Jasper left for two more," Edward continued.

I closed my eyes. Jasper's absence, Alice's dour expressions and her refusal to explain her mood to me... it all made sense now. I felt my shoulders droop and Edward's arms tightened around me as he pressed his lips to my forehead.

"I just don't trust him with you," he said, his lips moving softly against my brow.

"Do you really think he'd hurt me?" I whispered back.

"Not intentionally," he assured me. "But his remorse would not make me feel any better if anything were to happen to you."

"I'm not breakable any more," I reminded him.

"Yes, you are," he argued back. "Here," he pressed the pad of his finger against my head. "Here," he touched my chest above my heart. "His words could hurt you or cause you to question yourself again," he said reminding me of Rolle's confession in the garage. "Not to mention his 'profession' as an assassin. That's not a title that is easily given among vampires, Bella. We are all killers! Can you imagine what it must mean to single someone out as an assassin among our kind? I certainly can't... and that frightens me," he admitted to me in a voice so low, I almost hadn't heard him.

I sighed and rested my forehead against Edward's lips again. He accommodated me by pressing a kiss there.

"I want to be his friend," I admitted softly.

"You are," Edward insisted. "He cares for you deeply, but..." he hesitated, searching for the right words. "Rolle is like a dog that has been beaten and trained to kill. It doesn't mean that he isn't capable of affection and loyalty to those he loves. It just means he's unpredictable and he could hurt those closest to him without meaning to, because it's all he knows."

Edward pulled back and pressed his forehead to mine, staring into my eyes. "He will have more days like the campfire, Bella, I promise. And he'll treasure those memories and cling to them like lifelines when he has bad days."

He kissed me to reassure me, then gathered me close and nuzzled my neck as his hands slid under my shirt, pressing into the small of my back.


	11. Chapter 11 Observations

**Antithesis, Chapter 11**

Flap-p.

Flap.

Flap flap.

Flap flap SMACK!

"Gotcha!" Rosalie hissed.

"Damn!"

Flap flap.

"HA!"

"You know this isn't really a game of any skill," Edward muttered.

"Quiet! It is so," Rose snapped. "It's all about who is the fastest."

Flap flop, flap flap.

"And it's not even a game that comes _close_ to needing quiet," he returned.

"Mine!" I cried, pulling the cards to myself from our double-down as I patiently explained, "Slap-Jack isn't about skill, Edward. It's about kicking my sister-in-law's butt." I grinned, but didn't risk glancing up at Rosalie as we smacked down two more cards.

"Dibs on the winner," Alice said as she walked through the dining room.

"No!" Rose and I said together making both of us laugh and lose our focus. We did not need to elaborate on why playing Slap-Jack with someone who could see the future was a exercise in futility.

Rose had come from an era when playing card games in the evenings, or any sort of game for that matter, was a welcomed family bonding event. Growing up as an only-child, however, did not give me a lot of experience playing cards other than solitaire or an occasional Gin rummy with Renee.

Emmett and Jasper hated cards, except for poker, but that was more for the gambling than the bonding. Edward, Esme and Carlisle loved chess. Alice preferred the longer drawn-out games. Even though she always knew who was going to win, she said it was fun to spend hours with each other just for the teasing and banter that took place.

Flap flap.

Flap flap.

SMackk-crk.

"Oh crap," Rose muttered, looking down the hall.

"Girls! Was that my dining table?" Esme asked from her study. She didn't need to raise her voice. We could all hear her.

I stared at my hand with my mouth hanging open afraid to raise my palm to see the damage under it. I could feel the fissure that I did not want to look at.

"Let's blame Emmett," Rose murmured. "He breaks stuff all the time."

"I heard that," Esme groaned.

"Sorry, Esme," I said, fessing up. My voice was tiny with guilt even to my own ears.

Edward chuckled behind me and rubbed his hands over my shoulders. "Blame Alice," he said. "She saw you doing that."

A pillar candle flew at Edward which he ducked to avoid.

"Blame Edward," Alice shot back. "He heard my vision and he didn't stop you, either."

Edward glowered at his sister. Esme groaned from her study. Rolle laughed from the corner where he stood tossing Alice's projectile up and down in his hand.

"You guys have all lived together for how long?" he questioned with open suspicion and a knowing smile. He tapped his temple. "I think it's starting to affect you."

"You should play against Edward," Rose said to Rolle, restacking the cards. "You're about as fast as him."

"Play what?" Rolle asked.

"Slap-Jack," Rose answered.

"It's the only game where Edward can't cheat," Alice added.

Edward had the good grace to look embarrassed, but did not try to deny it. My husband had a horrible competitive streak, especially when it came to games.

"I think we'd have to have another bonfire out of Esme's table if it had to suffer another round," Edward pointed out.

"When will the guys be back, Alice?" Rosalie asked.

"Any minute now."

Rose looked around at all of us. "How about Pictionary tonight? We haven't played in ages. We won't play teams, we'll just play as individuals. First person to get three right, wins."

Pictionary was one of the games we could all play — sorta. We made our own rules and didn't pick teams. Edward and Alice could draw, but they couldn't guess for obvious reasons. When it wasn't their turn to draw, though, they acted as judges: Edward would identify the winner if an answer was shouted out, and Alice kept track of the time for each play.

Just as the door opened, Alice called out, "Pictionary in five."

"Excellent!" Emmett chuckled from the front door. "I call alphabet!"

"Oh, crap," I mumbled. That meant Alice would draw first, and I would draw second. I loved playing, but I hated the drawing part. Nothing I drew looked like what it was supposed to. Normally, Emmett called age, meaning the oldest of us would go first: usually Carlisle, if was playing, but more often it was Edward. It all depended on how embarrassed he thought I would be being first or dead last.

If I was quick enough, I'd call height, but he beat me to it this time. I moved from the dining table to the sofa with a resigned sigh while Alice found a large stencil pad.

Emmett came in and flung himself onto the sofa, and my lap, rubbing his hands together. "Prepare to get poned, sis," he grinned.

Jasper grabbed Emmett's feet and pulled him down the sofa, making room for Edward to sit with me.

"Thanks, Jazz," Edward said as he flopped a pillow onto Emmett's upturned face.

"Hey!" he pouted.

"Move your feet, lose your seat," Edward reminded him.

"I didn't move my feet! Jasper moved 'em for me."

"Semantics, Em. It's all semantics," Edward repeated, sitting next to me and pulling my knees over his legs.

"Come sit by me, baby," Rose called to him with a wink, setting the game box on the coffee table between us all.

"Score!" It took less than a second for him to materialize next to her on the sofa chair.

Alice placed one of Esme's large stencil pads using a dining room chair as an easel. She grinned at Jasper and uncapped a marker with a flourish. Reaching into the box, she pulled out the first card, read it, and rolled her eyes.

Edward snickered next to me.

"Stop it," I snapped at him, teasingly.

"I didn't say anything!" he teased back with an enormous grin on his face.

"No cheating!" Rose scolded.

"Okay, okay," Alice called to quiet us. "This is an object." It was the only clue she could give us. She thought for a moment, nodded to Jasper to start the timer, and drew two lines.

"Two words," we all said together. She nodded and then drew a square.

"Pizza Hut!" Emmett shouted.

The square became a box.

"Shoebox," Rose tried.

"Birthday present," was Jasper's guess.

Alice kept drawing. Now there was a smaller box inside the big box.

"The dichotomy of good versus evil," Emmett guessed again with a laugh.

"A coffin," I said.

"Eww," Rose said, wrinkling her nose at me. I shrugged back.

Alice drew a curly line from the small box to a long bent line with balls on the end.

"Barbells?" Jasper said in a disbelieving voice.

"Barbells in a box," Emmett muttered. "A SoloFlex?"

"Noo," Alice moaned.

"Eh! No talking," Edward warned her.

She shot a scowl at him and drew tiny circles near the small box with the barbells, then arrows from the circles to the small box.

We stared blankly at her and she tapped the marker furiously against the paper, drawing more lines between the circles and the small box. As the silence continued, she flapped her arms at us and huffed, tapping the paper again.

"BING!" Jasper called. "Time's up."

Alice slapped her hands to her legs, staring daggers at us.

"Phone booth," Rolle murmured from the back of the room.

Alice's face immediately brightened. "Yes! Yes! Why didn't you guess?"

Rolle opened his mouth, his eyes wide and just shrugged, shaking his head.

Alice strode across the room and snatched Rolle's hand, dragging him into our circle.

"Sit!" she commanded.

Rolle's face was a mask of repentant chagrin with just the right amount of fear as he quietly took a seat. "Sorry," he whispered.

I smiled at him a moment, then turned and caught Edward's eye. He returned my smile with a wink. I sighed, happily trapped in his gaze when his expression changed to one of pointed expectation. I felt myself frown an unspoken 'What?' at him.

"Bel-la!" Rose said brusquely. "Stop mooning over Edward and get up there!"

"Oh! Right. Sorry." I swatted at Edward who wouldn't let go of my legs. "Stop it," I hissed at him, giggling. He still wouldn't let me go. "Edward!"

Jasper reached over and helped me escape my husband. Edward pouted prettily and reached over to smack Jasper for aiding and abetting me.

"You have to play this time, Rolle," Rose instructed him. "You, too, Edward."

Shaking my head, I flipped over the paper to a clean sheet and drew a card out. It said _Bono_ and was a 'P.'

"Person, place or object," I told them, and Alice flipped the sand-glass timer a second before I drew a single line.

"One word," they all repeated.

I stared at the paper, trying to figure out what to draw next. Bono? What the hell?? What did I know about Bono?

The grains of sand crashed to the bottom of the timer. They sounded like asteroids crashing into the earth.

The paper was still blank.

This was a heck of a time to get writer's block...

"Pizza Hut!" Emmett shouted at my lack of drawing.

"You actually have to draw something now, Bella," Jasper droned.

I stomped my foot, mad at myself. Okay, okay... he was a guy. My 'guy' was a stick figure.

"Chicken!" Emmett tried again.

He played for U2, so I started drawing more guys for the band.

"More chickens!" Emmett shouted with a laugh.

I pursed my lips and ignored him. Drawing a guitar and donuts. It was supposed to look like drums, but they looked like donuts, so I scratched them out.

"The dichotomy of good versus evil," Jasper said and the room broke into laughter.

"Not helping!" I said in a high, tense, sing-song voice.

Oh, right! Bono was really big into donating money, so I drew a dollar sign. And he did something with Apple computer once, so I drew an apple. Okay, it looked like another donut, but... skewered from the top.

"Wow, Bella, I just..." Rose stammered. "I can't even begin to..." She looked helplessly at Alice.

"Don't look at me. I'm still trying to figure out the herd of chickens attacking the fat woman."

"Oh," Jasper said suddenly. "It's a circus!"

"A circus?" Edward exclaimed. "How do you get a circus out of that?"

Jasper pointed at my drawing. "The chickens, the fat lady, a candy apple, the donuts."

"Oo!" I said, hearing him say apple. I pointed at him. He was so close... Wasn't he?

"What?" Jasper recoiled in surprise. "Donuts?"

"Fair!" Rose tried instead as I shook my head at Jasper. "It's a fair!"

"How do you know what a candy apple is?" Emmett asked.

"Uh, guys," Alice interrupted slowly. "The timer is out."

"What?" Rose said, looking down. "When did it go out?"

"I don't know."

"Weren't you watching?" she accused.

"No, sorry... I was sucked into the trauma of Bella's artwork." Alice's voice was heavy with guilt, but not over her remarks about my drawing.

"Thanks," I said with as much sarcasm as I could, handing the pen over to Edward. "It was Bono," I confessed.

"Bono?" they almost all said together.

"How is that Bono?" Rosalie cried, laughing at me. They all launched into their own guesses about what I was trying to do, and I wasn't going to help them. Emmett was still hung up on the chickens in my drawing.

Rolle leaned toward me and asked, "Was that a band?"

My head snapped around to face him, my mouth hanging open.

"Yeah," I stammered with a nervous laugh. It died in my throat when I looked up and saw Edward looking oddly at Rolle.

The others were calming down and focusing on Edward now, who took a deep breath and flipped the stencil over to a new page. He picked up a card.

"Keep your eye on the timer this time," Rose warned Alice.

"D," Edward said. "Difficult."

"Oooo..." Emmett said impressively, showing us his jazz hands.

Edward studied the card a long moment, then set it face down on the coffee table. He didn't do anything for a long time, thinking. I stifled a smile. Even in little things like this, he was very deliberate.

"Any time you're ready, there, Edward," Jasper teased. "Just because we're immortal doesn't mean you can abuse it like this."

Edward seemed not to be listening, but I knew better. His lips pursed just a little more, his eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. I loved knowing him well enough to see the difference.

He nodded once to Alice, who diligently started the timer, and drew a single, long line.

"One word. Big," we all spoke.

Edward nodded and started to draw.

I love my husband. I love him more than the moon and the sky, but the man does have his limits, and art is one of them. He once walked me through The Louvre and named almost every piece and artist in the entire hall of Italian paintings, but he was just as helpless as I was when it came to actually creating art or drawing.

Still, it wasn't hard to draw a single line with a circle on top of it.

"Pizza Hut!" Emmett yelled.

"Stop!" Jasper and I yelled back at him, which seemed to be exactly the reaction he wanted, and he burst out laughing.

Edward continued, undaunted and I began to wonder if he was better at this than I thought, because the awkward rectangle with lines and stars looked a lot like...

"A flag?" I asked.

Edward stopped and beamed at me, touching his nose, then waving me to continue guessing.

"Country? Uh, banner? Uh, flag pole? Emblem? Colors?" I kept guessing. Edward finally shook his head and turned back to the paper.

"What do we have? Just 'flag'?" Rose asked the rest of us.

"I guess," Jasper answered.

Edward drew a hill and closed the bottom of it with a straight line.

"Teacup!" Rose interjected. "A... melted... upside down teacup?"

Edward growled and added a lightning bolt, or maybe it was a crack.

"A broken teacup," Jasper said, trying to help.

"Who broke a teacup?" Esme called from her study.

We all laughed. "Nobody," Alice assured her.

Edward took a deep breath through his nose, jerking his head to one side in his frustration.

"At least this is a good indication that you deserve one another," Emmett snarked.

I threw a pillow at him. Edward paused in his drawing to hook his pinky in mine in a form of solidarity.

He turned back to his drawing and I can't even begin to describe what he was doing. It was more than painful to watch. Something with crossed sticks, with crooked sticks off the top of each stick. Everyone just started guessing wild random things. If there was a connection to Edward's drawing or not, I couldn't begin to guess.

"Bug spray."

"Galapagos Islands."

"International Olympic Committee."

"Shoe rack."

"Guys! Guys!" Alice shouted over them. "It's supposed to be one word."

"Under-wire bra!" Emmett shouted. This time, Rose hit him with the pillow.

Edward trudged on relentlessly, adding two little circles and something that could have been the back end of a cow with only one leg.

"Independence," Rolle said.

Edward straightened up and stared at him, his expression mirroring mine from only a moment ago.

"Time!" Alice said.

"He got it," Edward said.

"Who? Rolle?" Jasper asked. "What was it?"

"Independence," Edward repeated.

I looked at Edward's tense expression. Rolle's was mildly pleased, obviously happy to be joining the fun. I didn't understand what was going on.

"Damn, that's two to nothing," Emmett grumbled.

"The first one he guessed doesn't count," Jasper was explaining as he rose and took the marker from Edward. "It was after the time limit."

Jasper picked up a card and the game began again, but Edward did not return to his seat next to me on the sofa. Instead, he sat on the arm of the sofa between me and Rolle.


	12. Chapter 12 Obligations

**Antithesis, Chapter 12**

Midnight to six was our time together, a sentimental remnant of my human life when Edward would watch me sleep. I didn't need to sleep anymore, but carving out a few hours of the day that was just about us was important to both of us. It wasn't just about having that time for making love, either. Well, that was a big part of it, but it was so much more than the simple physical aspect of our relationship. It was the long whispered talks we shared; simple observations about the day, planning things to do together, gentle teasing. The contentment we found each other's arms and each other's eyes brought a deep and abiding connection that was as addicting as our physical love for one another.

Tonight was that kind of night.

My cheek was pressed to his chest. My fingers swishing lightly, slowly over the bare skin of his breast, while his hands brushed over the back of my arm and shoulder.

Edward sighed deeply and slowly, raising his hand to capture mine, his fingers seeking out my wedding ring. He rubbed the pad of his index finger over the metal.

"Bella?"

I smiled. "Yes, Edward?"

"I need to ask you something very serious," he said in a tone that was anything but serious.

"I think I can manage serious," I agreed, not giggling with the greatest effort.

"Good," he confirmed. "Because I don't want you to get upset."

Upset? Okay, I was still amused, but now curious, too.

"Go ahead," I encouraged him.

"What does a herd of chickens attacking a fat woman have anything to do with Bono?"

I tweaked his nipple and he yelp, grabbing my hand and laughing.

"It wasn't a chicken. It was a stick figure of a man and his band, and that fat woman was a guitar!" I insisted.

"Really?" he asked amazed and stunned. I reached to tweak him again but he was too fast this time. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he laughed, holding my squirming hand away from his chest. "It's just that it was a very voluptuous guitar!"

"Oh, and what about you, Picasso?" I challenged back.

"What? You knew it was a flag," he complained prettily, still tickled that I had guessed that one.

"So what was the teacup then? The Boston Tea Party?"

"It wasn't a teacup," he maintained.

"Bunker Hill?" I offered.

"It was a bell," he gruffed. "The Liberty Bell, to be exact."

"Okay, okay, I'll give you that. It could have been a bell, but what was the crooked ex and the cow?" I asked politely.

"A cow?" he laughed, raising his head to look at me. "What drawing were you looking at?"

"It looked like the back end of a one-legged cow!" I told him, and he immediately began tickling me.

"I'll give you a cow...." he growled under his breath.

I squeaked and jumped, unable to get away from him. "Stop! Stop! Edward!" I laughed.

"Those were firearms with bayonets and the eastern continent of the United States, not a crooked ex and a cow!" he grated out in his laughter at me, his tickling fingers accentuating ever word between my squeals.

"Florida was a cow's leg??" I gasped with as much disbelief as I could manage without, still squirming. The blankets around us began to tangle in our legs. "Ahhh! Edward!"

We collapsed together then, laughing and kissing as he pulled me on top of him.

"I'll be sure to express my awe to Rolle for being able to see and define the true skill in your artistic abilities then," I said with a smile and was surprised when I didn't get one in return. "Edward?"

His brow furrowed deeply.

"Edward?" I whispered again.

His eyes met and held mine.

I raised my hand to his face, laying my fingers along his cheek. "You sat between us," I said, knowing that he would understand what I was talking about. He had placed himself as a barrier between Rolle and myself again.

He sighed and I closed my eyes as his breath washed over my face. When I opened them again, Edward was shaking his head.

"I like Rolle," he said as if this were a bad thing. "I really do. His insight into music philosophy... composition, theory, history... I've never enjoyed talking to anyone about those things before more than him. He challenges me as a musician in ways that I can't even explain, makes me think about music in ways I'd never considered."

When he stopped, there was only one word he had not said so I added it for him.

"But..?"

"The way his mind works..." Edward breathed and the way he said it, and how he looked at me, spoke volumes to me.

Rolle frightened him. Edward wasn't just wary of Rolle, or simply nervous. Rolle actually frightened him. The thought left me feeling a little sick.

"What do you mean?" I whispered back.

"I've never been around him as a tracker. Never knew how he did what he did. His mind... it's like it adapts to patterns. He doesn't just predict what a person will do, he begins to think like them. It's like his mind mimics another."

"So what he does isn't simply intuition?" I offered, but somehow I knew I was wrong.

"No, Bella, he actually duplicates it in such a way that he knows exactly what they will think, how they will think, what they will do. He's actually cloning their cognitive processes."

I had to take a minute to understand the implications of what Edward was telling me. It seemed like it was so different than simply reading another person's thoughts. "You mean, he copies the way they think? So he'd, what, know exactly how a person would act and react in any situation?"

"And solve problems, what answers they would come to in any situation. He would make the same decisions, the same resolutions... He doesn't predict what someone can do. He just comes to the same conclusions and simply knows what they will do next."

"Is he doing it on purpose?" I needed to know and actually breathed a sigh of relief when Edward shook his head.

"He has no understanding of how he's able to do what he does. The only reason I could figure it out was because his thoughts began to exactly mirror Alice's and my own, all in less than three minutes."

I recalled Rolle's words to me. "He knew I was trying to draw a band."

It seemed so innocent before, but now I lowered my head so Edward could not see my eyes. I didn't want him to see the doubt in them.

"Yes," he breathed against my forehead. "He was beginning to clone your thoughts as well. It seemed to be harder for him, but not impossible."

"You never noticed this before," was all I could say and though the words sounded accusing my tone was rhetorical. It was all too much to take in.

"I've never been in a situation like that with him. The game was goal oriented, not simply casual conversation."

"Goal oriented," I repeated. I thought back to Rolle's story, how he had tracked Gillian's murderer even as a human. He was definitely goal-oriented during that time, frighteningly so.

"You said that Demetri was linking himself to you," I reminded him, wanting to know how it was different.

"Yes, but now that I know what Rolle does, I would describe Demetri differently. It was like he was memorizing how my presence felt to him, like a blind man feeling another's face to get an idea of how they look." I felt Edward shake his head against me. "What they do is very different. It's hard to describe still. I don't have enough of a foundation to understand it yet. Rolle has no conscious understanding that he's even doing it, so he doesn't even think about it. It just happens to him."

Edward had once told me what it had been like for him as a newborn, trying to figure out how to interpret the bombardments of sensations he had to deal with when he woke and his gift became clear. He had said it was like trying to learn an unspoken language, that he needed to create filters that would help him interpret what he was sensing from others.

I was sure he was trying to add these new filters into his understanding even now. I knew it wouldn't be easy for him, like learning to speak a dead language that no longer existed. Rolle's gift was rare, and it wasn't even something he had ever used around us before today. If Rolle wasn't even aware he could do it, that meant the only time Edward could identify it was if he was there as it was happening.

"But we don't have a reason to be afraid of Rolle, right?" I asked him, lifting my head again. Edward placed his hands against my ribs, holding me to him.

"No! No," he repeated, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "No, Rolle truly does value our friendship, deeply. All of us." His expression as he spoke, though, did not change.

"But you're still concerned," I said rhetorically.

He nodded. "I'll speak with Carlisle about it."

I nodded once and leaned in to his lips, slowly deepening the kiss to reassure him.

§∞•••∞§

As he said he would, Edward spoke to Carlisle the next day, but that was also the day Rolle could not be found. He had been coming and going so frequently that no one thought much of it... until you actually wanted him around, that is. Suddenly, his prolonged absence started to concern everyone.

On the fourth day of Rolle's absence, November announced itself with a vengeance as Hurricane Emma swept north along the Atlantic seaboard. The eye of the storm was to hit far below Nova Scotia, but the storm was immense and slow, lumbering across the coast. For the past two days, the clouds had formed and the skies rumbled with thunder. With the bulk of the storm approaching, everyone decided to get out to hunt before the winds really picked up. Although the storm wouldn't bother us at all, we didn't want to run the risk of being seen out in the maelstrom in a way that could cause questions.

Jasper burst through the front door with an enormous smile on his face, forcing the door closed behind him against the wind in a swirl of leaves and dust. His hair was whipped around his face. He was simply giddy with excitement.

"How's it looking out there?" Emmett asked eagerly.

"Fantastic!" Jasper gasped, practically breathless. "You excited, Bella?"

"First hurricane hunt," Emmett reminded me, wagging his eyebrows.

"I don't know. I guess."

It was true. I was excited, but I didn't know why. I stood with Esme's arm around my shoulders reflecting back their feverish enthusiasm in my smile. There was energy in the air, something enormous and primal. I couldn't define it. I was practically vibrating with it.

"Of course she is," Esme said, tugging me close. "She's just overwhelmed right now." She turned her smile on me. "Once you're out there with Edward, you'll see what all the fun is about."

I smiled back at her. "I feel jumpy," I admitted.

"I can tell!" Esme laughed. "You feel like you're about to leap right out of your skin! Just wait," she told me, her own excitement adding to my own. "Edward will take care of you. You're going to have a great time."

I looked around at everyone. They were all as high-strung as I was. "Is this just because of the storm?"

"Ooh, yeah," Rosalie drawled with the biggest smile I've ever seen from her.

"And the animals are feakin' out, too, so they really put up a fight," Emmett said, rubbing his big hands together.

"Edward," Alice said, bouncing in place, "can we hunt with you? I can't wait to see her out there."

Edward turned to me. "Bella?" He would let me decide.

"Sure, the more the merrier," I said with a shrug.

Emmett snorted. "Well," he drawled, "for a while anyway." He leaned over and punched Edward's shoulder. "Bet you guys don't resurface til after the storm passes."

I had learned a long time ago that violent storms excited us in other ways as well. Emmett's words were rich with implication that I was looking forward to as well. I slid my hand into Edward's who held up a warning finger at his brother to not say another word. I loved it when Edward played the protector of my integrity. He was always the perfect gentleman with me. Well, in public anyway. When we were alone, that was another matter altogether. That side of Edward was just for me. No one would ever see that side of him... as long as they knocked before bursting into our room, that is.

I bit my lips at the thought, fighting back the silly laughter I was feeling as I let myself think about what was in store for the two of us.

"Emmett, behave yourself," Esme scolded.

He simply laughed knowingly and held up his hands in surrender.

Carlisle joined us at that moment and his excitement mirrored our own. He looked like a kid at Christmas and I loved him even more for sharing the same feelings we were experiencing.

"Everyone ready?" he asked. As we nodded, he reminded us to stay in the forest to the east of the house. There was over a hundred miles of undeveloped shoreline in Duncans Cove.

"Bella?" Carlisle asked, looking to me as the youngest and least experienced.

I nodded quickly, excitedly, and grasped Edward's and Alice's hands, holding them up, and knowing what I was going to do, Alice grabbed Jasper's hand, too. "I got my buddy system."

"Okay," he laughed at us and I saw a flash of pride in his eyes.

Jasper opened the door and the wind gushed in to greet us.

"Let's go!" Carlisle said with a wave of his hands, urging us out the door.

I felt a buzz of anticipation like we were all beginning a long-awaited vacation and I couldn't stop smiling. When I turned to look at him, I found Edward watching me. His eyes were bright and wild with excitement. He brought my fingers to his lips.

"Ugh," Alice groaned, fighting a laugh of exasperation and used me as a towrope to tug us both out the door behind her.

§∞•••∞§

The storm ramped up around us as the hunt progressed. Alice, Jasper, Edward and I ran bristling with an energy that was palpable. The electricity in the air danced on our skin as the wind and rain lashed at us. I was amazed at the power coursing through me. I felt drunk with it. Each stride I took propelled me as my instinct took over. I knew three things. First, I was a force of nature. I was the storm. Second, the sweet scent of blood was heavy in the air, but confused, swirling in the gusting wind. Third, half of myself was running at my side. Edward's presence was like a beacon in my mind connecting me to him. I knew exactly where he was as the ground blurred under our feet.

We all came upon a herd of deer right away. This was like no other hunt I'd ever been on. We hunted as a team, circling the herd. As the fastest of us, Edward drove them toward us. Water streamed in my eyes, but I clearly saw the sleek shape of the startled herd bobbing between the heavy trunks of the ancient forest. Within minutes, we were each feasting on our own kills.

When I looked up, my eyes went straight to Edward. As soon as he felt my gaze on him, he looked up and returned it. He was dazzling. His hair was plastered to his head. Rivulets of water ran over his forehead. His wet shirt clung to his chest. His eyes were cast into dark, but I knew the look I would find there. I had seen it every day for a lifetime.

Lightning flashed over our heads and I tipped my head back, feeling the rain pelt against my upturned face. Thunder exploded around us instantly and the ground shook under our feet.

I was in Edward's arms in an instant, his lips crashing down on mine as the thunder rolled out around us in all directions.

"What was that?" Jasper yelled to us through the trees.

I hadn't heard anything. I didn't want to hear anything other than Edward's deep growl in my mouth.

And then I heard it. It sounded like a landslide, boulders crashing against each other.

"Edward?" Alice called to us now.

He released my lips but did not let me go, moving only inches away from my face, staring down into my eyes.

"Edward?" Alice called again.

"I heard it," he yelled back to her after tipping his chin away. He couldn't look away from me. He reached up and dragged his fingers across my face. "I love you," he said, his voice torn and rough.

I gripped his face and kissed him again with all the passion I could muster, and in my current state, that was a lot. He groaned against me and we heard the collision again, louder this time.

We turned to try and locate the direction of the sound. Alice and Jasper appeared at our sides. The crash of boulders came again, and I knew what it was. I had heard it before in a field in Washington during a baseball game and many games like it every since.

The sound came again and this time we all started running toward it, toward the coast. No one asked what it could be. We all hoped it was just Rosalie and Emmett, but there was something else that we could not give voice to. Could it be...? Was it possible...? Had Rolle returned? Had he finally snapped? Where was Carlisle and Esme? We barreled over a ridge and the featureless expanse of the ocean appeared in the distance smeared and blended into the sky, the horizon blurred with the water in the air.

We broke through the shelter of trees and the wind tore at us with a fury. We came out on the southern point of a rocky bay. The crash of boulders echoed from the basin of the bay. Two vampires leapt at each other crashing into and rebounding off of one another.

It was Rolle. There was no doubt about him, his white-blonde hair acted as a light in the storm. The other had his back to us. He had longer hair that hung to his shoulders. Rolle crouched and sprung to higher ground. The other vampire followed. Rolle miscalculated his next jump and was caught in mid-air by the other. They tumbled to a dark ledge.

The air began to vibrate and a low hum filled the bay. The two vampires were exchanging blows now, every strike cracking with each connection. The noise grew louder and rumbled through the air like an earthmover.

"It's Demetri," Edward shouted above the wind and noise.

No. No, it couldn't be. My chest felt like it was being crushed. It was true. Everything Rolle had told us was true, and the Volturi were here. Panic raced through me, scorching me from the inside out.

We all looked at Edward and he looked back at each of us, starting and stopping with me. He could see the terror in my eyes and I knew it ripped at him, but I could do nothing to stop it. I could do nothing to reassure him that I was okay. I was paralyzed by the reality unfolding in front of us.

The deep roaring sound intensified and grew louder. Rock and scree began to tumble off the cliffs, loosened by the sound. Suddenly, like cloth being ripped, a piercing screech filled the air.

"AAgh!" I cried, doubling over, gripping my head in agony.

I heard screaming. It was Alice. She was in Jasper's arms, her hands clutching her head as well, smashing her ears against the sides of her head. The sound, whatever it was, felt like blades slicing through our bodies. Edward was on his knees beside me, crying out my name, trying to reach for me but crippled by the pain that tore at all of us. I fell beside him, leaning into his shoulder.

Another scream rent the air; a man's scream. I raised my eyes and found Rolle circling Demetri, who was curled over his knees in agony.

I could feel the screeching noise change tenor and begin to shudder, beating madly like helicopter blades. I could feel the air vibrating around us. I could now see that it was more than the air. It was the rain, too. I could literally see the sound waves being reflected in the sheeting rain, rippling out from the center: Rolle and Demetri.

We heard Rolle yelling across the bay. Our eyes were drawn to him and we saw Demetri trying to get to his feet. Rolle had opened his mouth wide and the screeching, beating sound changed to something thick and pulsing. As the first new wave of this thick sound rolled over us in the air and rain I felt intensely nauseous like I had never felt before, not even as a human. Edward heaved beside me, clutching his chest and stomach as if would be sick as well.

Rolle took two giant strides to Demetri, who was doubled over just as I was. Rolle pulled him up by his hair and hit him flat-handed in the chest.

Demetri vanished in a cloud of dust that the wind tore into the sky.


	13. Chapter 13 Reclamations

**Antithesis, Chapter 13**

_**A/N:** Yes, I know. I never do author notes, but on this occasion it is necessary to explain something about the plum in this chapter. I'm actually taking this story plot from another author: "LolaShoes." Her story is "A Life Extraordinary" and it develops Edward and Bella's life immediately after their marriage in greater detail._

_Under other circumstances, I would have incorporated the meaning of the plum into "Antithesis" early on, but it only came to life in chapter 38 of "ALE" which was published this week._

_With the author's permission, I've created a bit of a cross-universe with "ALE" and borrowed bits and pieces of the reality that LolaShoes has created: Edward and Bella's private 'Midnight to 6am' time, Edward's non-existent artistic talents (which just worked so well in the pictionary scene), and now the plum._

_So. About the plum. It is actually a private "safe word" between Edward and Bella that means "Come back to us" and "togetherness" or "escape." If either of them use it, it's meant to alert the other that something isn't right and they want to find comfort in private to talk or just to get away so they can make it right again. You will see why this is relevant as you read chapter 13, "Reclamation."_

_Look for bonus chapters and deleted scenes, coming soon.

* * *

_

I saw the last swell of the resonating wave passed over us and I gasped as the nausea immediately ended. The sheets of rain came down now without interference and the roaring apart from the storm had stopped. Now, the only sound was that of the wind lashing in the trees and the crashing waves of the ocean as it battered the shore. Edward pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around me. When he was certain I was safe, he turned and reached one hand out to Alice and Jasper. They both took his hand into one of theirs while still clinging to each other.

We were all in shock.

"What just happened?" Jasper barely said above the noise of the storm. "What the hell was that?"

We looked back across the bay. Rolle was alone on the ledge. We could see the wind whip at his hair and clothes as lightning burst over our heads with an immediate explosion. Our agitation had made us twitchy and we ducked at the sudden clamor.

"Come on!" Edward yelled recovering first as he pulled me to my feet.

We ran along the ridge of the bay, jumping fallen trees and boulders, leaping over run-off ravines. As the thunder rolled out from us in all directions, we caught glimpses of Rolle through the trees as we ran. He was still on the ledge. Giant waves crashed below him, spraying enormous clouds of white mist all around him.

"Rolle!" Edward shouted. He couldn't hear us over the storm. "Rolle!"

We pelted around the northwest end of the bay and lost sight of the ledge for a moment. When we got into the clearing and could see the ledge again, Rolle was gone.

Edward stopped short, searching the ledge, cliff face and surf for any sign of him. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Rolle!" he called out as loud as he could.

"Where did he go?" Jasper shouted.

"Did you see him go into the water?" Alice asked.

"No," Edward answered. "Did any of you?"

We all shook our heads, still searching for him.

Alice clutched my arm suddenly. I was so wound up that I started. When I turned to see what she wanted, her eyes were wide with alarm. "Edward!" she gasped.

"Alice! What's wrong?" I yelled and turned to Edward. He had the same expression on his face as Alice.

"We have to get back!" he yelled, grabbing my hand as he turned. We followed him at a full run.

"What's wrong? What did Alice see?" I shouted over the storm.

"Marcus with Carlisle," he yelled back and picked up the pace he had set, almost dragging me with him.

Marcus? Here? Now? Panic raced through me and I stumbled as my knees went weak, only kept on my feet by Edward's hard grasp on my hand.

"Edward, I can't run that fast," I said. "You go! Go find Carlisle! I'll catch up with Alice and Jasper."

"No!" he shouted back.

"We'll be okay!" I had to make him see reason.

"NO!" he shouted, angry now, but he did slow down and kept as fast a pace as the rest of us could manage with the wind and whipping branches lashing at us, ripping our clothes.

Alice stumbled at my side and screamed. "_No!_ Rolle, NO!"

Edward bellowed in outrage and the sound that erupted from him scared me more than I had ever been before. It was rage, denial, betrayal and fear.

"What? Edward, what?" I cried, frantic with dread. Something was horribly wrong.

My hand flew back to Alice who grabbed my fingers so hard it felt like she would crush them. "What did you see?" I screamed frantically, but Alice could not talk. Jasper wrapped his hands under her arm and the four of us found new speed as we raced home.

I hadn't realized we had gotten so far away from the house. Even though each mile flew by, even though the rain and wind of the hurricane pushed us with a heavy hand to slow us down, even though I didn't want the thoughts that were going through my mind, I didn't want to face the inevitable. The Volturi? Rolle's precarious mental stability? The hurricane that drove us in carnal instinctual ways I couldn't yet understand? I could only think one thing...

What has he done?

I pictured Rolle's hand smashing flat against Demetri's chest and I thought of Esme; sweet loving Esme vanishing into dust.

I pictured Rosalie, fighting back, blow after granite-cracking blow.

I pictured Emmett, tackling Rolle in mid-air and falling to a ledge.

It was none of them.

It was all of them.

It was the heart and soul of our family.

_...it was Carlisle..._

The four of us burst through the trees and into the yard... into Hell.

Rolle had Carlisle trapped from behind. With only one arm he held Carlisle locked in place with a frightening twist of limbs that seemed capable of ripping them off with a single motion. Rolle's other hand was clamped down on Carlisle's jaw, forcing his head back in another extreme position. I choked on the image of how easy it would be for Rolle to rip Carlisle's upper body apart using this torturous hold.

As we came crashing into the yard, the torrential rain pummeling us, Rolle spun to face us causing Carlisle to scream in pain. I half expected to see Carlisle's arms fall to the ground with that sound.

Esme screamed hysterically in response to his pain. I saw her in Rosalie's arms against the mangled side of Emmett's Land Rover. Emmett was face down in the mud. His arm was at his feet, a yard away.

Edward and Jasper snarled in rage, but neither of them attacked. Edward could no more leave my side, than Jasper could leave Alice's. Rolle snarled back with such viciousness that I couldn't recognize any part of him.

"STOP!" a clear voice bellowed long and low and completely unfamiliar.

He was dressed in black and stood on the other side of an ancient tree. He was obscured from our view when we entered the yard. Even as he stepped forward it was hard to really see him through the sheeting rain. I saw his stark white hair before I could make out his form in the darkness.

Marcus.

While we were covered in mud and leaves, he was somehow regal and sharp even though he was drenched. Our clothes hung on us in ripped tatters from lashing branches. His suit was old, but ornate and rich. The black velvet was elaborately embroidered with piping and braids. The cut of his black pants was too crisp. His hair was plastered to his skull. Water streamed over his translucent skin in rivulets.

"Let him go!" Marcus commanded over the roar of the rain and thunder.

"He's your enemy!" Rolle shouted back.

My jaw dropped open in shock. Rolle... and the _Voturi_?

Edward roared furiously and Jasper lunged toward Rolle, but Rolle spun Carlisle around again using him as a shield.

"Jasper!" Rosalie screamed in fear.

Carlisle cried out in pain again. "Edward, no!" he choked out through gritted teeth.

Esme cried out again at the unbearable sound of pain in Carlisle's voice. I sobbed and choked never wanting to hear his voice like that again.

Rolle glared at Jasper. There was nothing I recognized in that deadly stare. This wasn't the Rolle I knew. This was the assassin.

"He is not my enemy," Marcus shouted again, demanding Rolle's attention.

"He is!" Rolle maintained. "I have heard the stories."

"No!" Marcus yelled.

"Yes! You came to test him. To see for yourself!" Rolle argued.

"I said release him!" Marcus commanded sharply.

"I won't!" Rolle shouted back.

Marcus was angry now and stormed forward. "Who are you to question..."

"I can't let them hurt you!" Rolle interrupted, raising his voice over the storm. "You made me what I am."

Marcus stopped dead in his tracks at these words, his expression freezing in place as he stared at Rolle.

As if knowing that Marcus was trying to figure out who he was, Rolle pushed Carlisle forward a step, making him grunt again in pain. He twisted himself around Carlisle so Marcus could see him clearly.

"You!" Marcus gasped. His voice was nearly lost on the wind that had picked up even more speed. His coat flapped violently around his legs.

He stared at Rolle as if he'd never seen him before and I wondered if he had ever learned that Rolle had survived the watery nonexistence he had condemned him to all those years ago.

As this knowledge seemed to sink in, Marcus' surprised stare went around the yard, looking at all of us before it settled on me and changed to a suspicious, calculating glint. He looked back at Rolle. Methodically looked at each one of us, squinting through the rain, always looking back at Rolle before he moved on to the next.

It was like watching a strange ping-pong match and I was certain he was using his gift, looking for any ties between us. I was equally as certain the only thing he saw from us was our wrath at Rolle's complete and utter betrayal.

Apparently satisfied that he was not being duped, Marcus' attention returned to Rolle.

"You made me! And then you left me." Rolle accused. "Why?" he demanded to know.

The apathy that I associated with Marcus returned, and he looked like the vague human memory I had of him that day in Volterra.

"I wanted you then," he answered with an empty hollow tone, only just loud enough to be heard over the storm.

"Then? Then!" Rolle snarled. "And then _what_? You changed your mind?" he accused viciously.

Marcus shook his head slowly. "Then things... changed," his added slowly, his voice sounded distant and it broke over the word.

Carlisle gasped in Rolle's hands and Rolle renewed his grip. Esme cried out desperately in Rosalie's arms, but Rolle ignored her. Edward and Jasper hissed angrily, itching to leap in to attack.

"Changed how?" Rolle snapped loudly, water spitting from his lips. His hair and rain streamed into his eyes, the water dripped from his jaw.

Marcus took a deep breath and raised his chin and the wind receded momentarily. "My mate was killed."

Rolle seemed confused at this and his reaction confused _me_ as well. Rolle _knew_ this already. He had told me this himself. Why would it confuse him now? Was his mind so broken that part of him did not know the truth?

Rolle paused has he appeared to process this information and scanned around him a moment, evaluating our positions as if he thought he was being tricked. He looked back at Marcus again.

"So you see... I had a new understanding of you. I fully comprehended what you were feeling, your lost sense of purpose over your lover's death. So in a rare display of pity, I returned to put you out of your misery." Marcus turned and strode a few steps away, then raised his eyes to look at all of us, but he didn't seem to care that we were being made privileged to this information. He looked at Rolle again over his shoulder. "When I found you, however, my grief became self-serving and I tore you apart in the hopes that you would turn your exquisite revenge on me as well."

Rolle's silver eyes flashed. "You... You wanted me to kill you," he stated as fact.

Marcus shrugged. His voice still overly loud to be heard above the storm. "I'd hoped your sense of vendetta would extend me that courtesy, yes." His blank expression turned bitter. "As it turned out, I was disappointed in that as well."

"That explains why you killed me the second time," Rolle said slowly, apparently still trying to process this information. "So why did you kill me the first time?"

Marcus sighed heavily as if bored. "I wanted you for the guard," he answered simply, and it was exactly as Carlisle had guessed.

"Guard...?" Rolle repeated slowly.

Rolle didn't know what the Volturi Guard was? How could he not? Something was beginning to nag at me, but I couldn't allow myself to focus on it. Carlisle's choking sounds and Marcus' voice would not let me focus.

"Yes, the Volturi Guard. You had... specific talents that we could have found useful."

Rolle looked at Marcus, obviously waiting for more, but Marcus said nothing else.

"And now?" Rolle asked impatiently. "What now?"

Marcus turned to face him. "Now... you let Carlisle go. He is not an enemy. He is a friend."

Rolle looked down at Carlisle in his arms, his face hard. "I removed the one that was following you," he said suddenly.

Dismay flickered in Marcus' eyes. "Removed? Removed how?"

"He's gone," was Rolle's simple reply.

"What does that mean?" Marcus pressed, but Rolle did not elaborate. "Who was following me?"

"I don't know. He had long dark hair. He wore a black cloak." Rolle went on to describe Demetri and I saw recognition dawn on Marcus' face.

"You..." he paused, trying to understand Rolle's implications. "You... _saved…_ me from _him_?"

"He was following you," Rolle said, but not agreeing outright.

Marcus stared at Rolle as if seeing him for the first time. Something of his old self reappeared in his eyes then, and the apathy was gone altogether revealing a deep and calculating mind. This must have been who Marcus had been before his mate was killed. Only now could I see how Marcus had fit so easily into the Volturi trio. He was just as capable of plotting and strategizing and maneuvering as Aro, and more so than Caius who let his impatience cloud any logical thinking.

Marcus slowly nodded. "Thank you." His apathy immediately returned and he waved a hand dismissively in Rolle's direction. "Now release Carlisle. I know he is no enemy. You have my word." He turned and looked and Edward. "I apologize on behalf of the Volturi for the trouble that my protégé has caused. He only meant to serve me in the only way he knew how."

The snarl on Edward's lips only deepened, and I knew Rolle's betrayal was curling like a disease in him. I clutched his hand and wrist tighter in my fingers. The wind started picking up again and thunder rumbled ominously overhead.

Rolle's fingers slowly released Carlisle and Esme was at his side in an instant, curling into his arms as she clutched the back of his shirt in both hands. Rosalie moved to care for Emmett and rolled him onto his back, gasping to force back a sob. She reached out with shaking fingers to drag his severed arm through the mud to his side.

Rolle backed away from us warily, always keeping Marcus in his protective sight.

Marcus waved his hand weakly toward Carlisle in something meant to be an apology. "I am very sorry..."

Carlisle rubbed his neck and his voice was hoarse as he asked, "Why did you come?"

Marcus only shook his head. "It does not matter, my friend. It is no longer an issue that needs to be aired. I know all I need to know now. Please forgive our intrusion."

Carlisle nodded hesitantly. "Take him with you," he said coldly, staring hard at Rolle.

Marcus nodded with regret and turned to walk away. He took Rolle by the elbow who turned him to follow. When Marcus released his arm though, Rolle paused and spun, flicking something into the air toward us.

Edward snatched it out of the wind with a scowl and turned it over in his hand.

It was a plum.

Edward's eyes went wide as he looked at me. I'm gasped in shock as he showed it to me. We whipped our heads up at the same time, looking at Rolle.

He met our eyes for only a moment before he turned to follow Marcus. Edward fell to his knees in the mud, dragging me with him.

§∞•••∞§

As Rolle and Marcus walked away, a layer of sound as thin as onion skin was peeled away. It felt like a low hissing like a white noise generator, indistinguishable from the sounds of the storm, had been turned off.

The world went into fast-forward around us. Jasper rushed to Emmett. Rosalie's beautiful face was contorted with fear and anger as she choked back her tearless sobs. Alice rushed to Esme and Carlisle and wrapped them in her arms. The hurricane started to bring branches down out of the trees.

I stared at the plum in Edward's hand. "What does it mean?" I don't know if my voice made the words. I couldn't hear myself.

Edward shook his head then raised his hand to my cheek and pushed my hair out of my eyes. Together, we snapped back into reality and got to our feet to help our family.

Edward threw his arms around Carlisle embracing him in desperation and relief. "Are you alright?"

Carlisle only breathed deeply and nodded. There was disappointment heavy in his eyes as he reached his hand out and cupped my cheek. I captured his hand under my own and pressed his palm closer. I felt guilty and confused about what had just happened, but I needed to know everyone was safe first. Esme pulled me into her arms and tucked me close as she stroked my hair.

"Are you alright?" she asked me.

I couldn't stop a nervous burst of laughter at her logic that something could be wrong with _me_! "I'm fine. What happened?"

Before she could answer, Emmett groaned painfully several feet away. Despite his own injuries, Carlisle went into doctor mode and hurried to his son's side. Jasper was reattaching the severed arm.

No matter how many times I see that — and I had only seen it happen once before when Emmett tried to foolishly stop his old jeep from sliding off a cliff — I still cannot get used to the sight of one of our limbs reattaching itself.

"Where am I?" Emmett moaned. "What happened?"

"You were unconscious?" Edward asked as he knelt beside Emmett.

Rosalie helped Emmett sit up and threw her arms around his neck. He wrapped his uninjured arm around her waist wincing in pain. Alice reached out and rested her hand on his muddy hair as the torrential rain slowly rinsed the mud down his neck. She touched his head, his shoulder, his arm, to reassure herself he would be all right. Jasper kept looking over his shoulder as if he was afraid the threat would return.

"Let's get everyone inside," Carlisle urged in a tired voice.

Edward helped Emmett to his feet and Jasper kept a secure arm around Carlisle as we got out of the storm.

The roaring sound of the storm muted as we got inside and the door closed behind us.

"Stop," Esme said dismissively when we hesitated, trying to not spread mud all over the house. "Don't." She pulled and patted and herded us — mud and all — into the living room and down the hall to the bedroom she and Carlisle shared.

Jasper helped Carlisle to the bed and eased him down. Esme climbed up beside him, pulling me along behind her. She kissed my forehead before leaning her cheek onto Carlisle's shoulder, her hand curled around mine with no intention of letting go.

As the three of us were tucking into each other, Edward helped Emmett sit across the foot of the bed and Rose pulled his shoulder down gently so he could rest his head in her lap. Rose stroked his forehead and cheek with one hand, angrily wiping her other hand across her eyes and pushing her hair out of her face. I watched her touch Emmett so gently, even as she treated herself so harshly.

I stretched my leg out and pressed my foot against her thigh, wishing I had kicked off my shoes. Rosalie looked up sharply, her vulnerability and self-condemnation spilling out of her expression for a moment before her face relaxed and she tried to smile at me, patting my ankle to reassure me.

Alice crawled onto the middle of the bed where she could touch everyone and gently urged Emmett's injured arm over her, resting her head on Rose's knee, too.

Edward came around and sat beside me on the edge of the bed with his arm over my shoulders and half onto Esme's. Jasper took the other edge between Emmett and Carlisle's legs. Alice lifted a foot over his thigh when he placed his hand on her hip.

When we had all stilled, the silence in the room thickened. We looked at each other without really seeing one another as we processed what just happened. All eight of us curled up on Esme's hand-embroidered quilt, muddy, bruised and soaking wet, and all we could do was be grateful we were all here together. Safe.

Emmett was the first one to speak.

"If I see that mother fucker again, I'll kill him." His voice was quiet and though his words were angry, his tone was not.

Esme said nothing about his language, but then again, all she had to do was allow it and it was as if she had spoken the words herself.

Jasper raised his eyes. "If you see him again... run." Emmett's eyes darted to him, and Jasper added quietly, "I know I will."

"What?" Emmett gasped in shock.

"We saw why he's called an assassin. We saw what he can do," Jasper said.

I had never seen Jasper look so old or so tired.

"What can he do?" Carlisle asked.

Jasper shrugged and shook his head, trying to find the words. "He makes people vanish."

"You mean, like, disappear?" Rose asked faintly.

Jasper still could not wrap his mind around what we had witnessed.

"There was a noise," Edward said. "It caused pain. Like your entire being was ripped apart, cell by cell."

"And then it changed," I added. "It felt like it was pulsing. I thought I was going to be sick."

"Sick, like nausea?" Carlisle asked.

I nodded. "I could even see it beating through the rain."

"Demetri doubled over as the sound started," Jasper added.

"We all did," Alice corrected.

Jasper continued. "And then Rolle hit him flat in the chest and he just disappeared. It was like he had been turned into dust, and the wind just whipped him away."

"Like some kind of intense sonic disruption," I said and stopped. Suddenly many things made sense. "Like sonar? He's in the water all the time, and he had a human gift for music and singing." I looked at Edward and he looked at Carlisle.

"Is that possible? Could his human abilities be warped like that?"

Carlisle thought for a moment. "I suppose it's possible, though I've never heard of it."

"That's what makes him an assassin," Alice whispered. "He can kill a vampire in less than a second. No fight. No fire. He can turn you into dust in an instant."

"If it's so easy, why didn't he kill any of us?" Carlisle asked.

"What happened here?" Edward wanted to know.

"The four of us were in the hunt when Esme caught Marcus' scent leading toward the house," Carlisle said. "We came back to meet him. We had only just caught sight of him when Rolle came out of nowhere and tackled Emmett. No matter what we tried to say to stop him, he only attacked with more ferocity."

"When I tried to pull him off Emmett, he threw me against Emmett's truck," Rosalie added. "That only made things worse, and he ripped Emmett's arm off." Rose's voice had gone cold. Her rage seethed as she said these words out loud.

"He rammed me back against the Rover," Emmett picked up the story, "and it was all I could do to not get Rose caught between me and the truck, but that's all I remember. I hit the Rover, the glass flew everywhere, and then... nothing."

"Nothing meaning... you were unconscious?" Edward asked curiously.

"I don't know. I've never been unconscious before," Emmett answered.

"How can that be?" Jasper asked Carlisle.

"Can't we get knocked unconscious?" I wanted to know.

Carlisle shook his head. "Dazed, yes, but not unconscious. Our minds don't work like human minds do. They don't shut down to protect against extreme pain, just like we don't sleep to rejuvenate or heal."

"When Carlisle tried to intercede," Esme continued the story now, "Rolle just snapped and caught his wrist. He flipped them over onto the ground and when he came up again, he had Carlisle in some kind of locking hold. That's how we were when you arrived."

"And Rolle said nothing? Gave no indication as to what prompted the attack?" Edward asked softly.

Carlisle shook his head. "No more than what he said to Marcus. That he was protecting Marcus from us."

I found myself shaking my head. "It doesn't make any sense," I muttered out loud.

"What doesn't make sense is him attacking us," Rosalie hissed. "What doesn't' make sense is him ripping Emmett's arm off."

I felt a rush of shame at Rose's words. "I know. I'm sorry," I whispered. If our positions were reversed, I knew my reaction would be the same as hers: plain and simple anger. "It's just that..."

I couldn't stop myself. I didn't want to sound like I was defending Rolle against my family after what he'd done, but everything seemed so wrong and I just wanted to figure it out.

"Well... he came here to _warn_ us that the Volturi would come. Why would he suddenly be worried about protecting _them_?"

"Perhaps because they sent Marcus," Carlisle offered. "Maybe he couldn't attack the one who made him."

"But that doesn't make sense either," I pressed. "He could have joined Marcus anytime if that's what he wanted. Rolle's been nothing but confused about why Marcus 'killed him twice'," I quoted. Another thought suddenly occurred to me. "And why did he ask Marcus about that? He knew about Marcus' mate. He was the one who told _us_ about it. Why did he seem surprised to learn about it? And he pretended like he didn't know who the Volturi Guard was. And Demetri... He knew who Demetri was. We talked about him the night we came back from the festival."

Edward shifted beside me as Jasper pointed out, "But he'd never met Demetri. He wouldn't have known who he was by appearance."

As Jasper had spoken, I saw Edward's hand come up in my peripheral vision and I turned to see what he was doing.

He held the plum in his palm again.

"Could it..." he began to say, but stopped. His expression was resistant and confused, like he did not want to admit to something that was against his will.

"What is it, Edward?" Carlisle pressed.

Instead, Edward looked at Alice. "You saw nothing of this?" he asked in a tone that was not judging, but almost pleading.

Alice still looked ashamed and shook her head. "Not until it was too late."

"But you'd had other visions around Rolle while he was here that were accurate," Edward said, knowing it was true because he would have heard them right along with her. Alice nodded. "So why now? What do you think was different about tonight that kept you from seeing this happening?"

Alice stroked the back of Emmett's hand as she answered. "The only times I haven't been able to see Rolle's future is when he's broken. Ask Jazz. He's been happy here with us all this time." Jasper nodded in agreement. "And I've seen him in every vision until today."

"So something happened today that flipped him," Edward said like he was thinking out loud.

"You said he was unpredictable," I reminded him. "Like a dog that could turn on you without warning."

"Wait a minute," Rosalie said suddenly. "Are we seriously trying to find excuses for what he did today? He attacked us! He ripped off Emmett's arm! He could have ripped Carlisle in half!"

"He could have killed all of us a lot easier," Jasper reminded us. He looked at Edward. "So why do you think something flipped him?" he asked.

"The plum," Alice answered, and I realized that she would of course know about the safe word Edward and I used.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Rosalie shot back.

"It's our safe word," I answered. "We use it when we need time to be together, when we're in a situation where we need to get away and talk or just be alone."

Carlisle leaned forward and stared at Edward. "Do you think he did all of this intentionally? To protect us?"

Edward shook his head. "I really don't know."

"But why?" Esme gasped.

"Oh my God." I knew. I knew why. "Aro."

Edward moaned beside me. "He had to make it look authentic so Aro would believe it was all true when he saw Marcus' thoughts. Aro would have to see that Marcus's gift saw no ties between Rolle and us."

"So why did he leave with Marcus?" I asked. "Edward, why would he leave with Marcus?"

Edward looked at me, then looked at Carlisle. "He killed Demetri. Rolle killed the Volturi tracker."

Carlisle's face fell. "He's going to take his place. He's joining the Volturi."

§∞•••∞§

The family came to an immediate decision after that revelation, and we simply had to know. Alice saw that Marcus was flying back to Italy as soon as the weather permitted. We really had no way of knowing if we were right about Rolle. All our hopes hinged on a single piece of fruit and its secret message.

The only thing we could do was wait for Alice to tell us when it would be safe to approach Rolle to get answers, without Marcus knowing. Our chance came two days later.

We watched Marcus head into the airport terminal leaving Rolle alone at the door. His eyes were blank. His face was slack. He stood rooted to the spot like he had all those years ago in Forks the first night I had met him.

"I can't let him do this," Edward whispered, but I didn't know if he was talking to me or just speaking out loud.

We hurried around the corner and walked quickly up the sidewalk, glancing continuously into the terminal to see where Marcus was. When we reached Rolle, we simply grabbed him by the arms and pulled him past the doors around the far corner of the building. He did not react at all. He had been transported from that spot to this and he never even blinked.

"Rolle," Edward hissed out his name. There was no reaction. "Rolle!" he said again, shaking him by the shoulders. "You can't do this!"

"I want to," he whispered, but his eyes did not focus on us.

"Rolle, please," I begged, "don't leave. Don't join them."

He took a deep breath and seemed to come to life in front of us. He closed his eyes slowly and smiled sadly, turning to look at me. He just stared at me and I tried to tell him with my eyes that Volterra was the wrong place for him. He raised his hand to my cheek.

"I love you for trying… still," he whispered to me and shook his head with an ironic puff. "But you have to understand, this is what I want. This is how I can be with her and," he looked at Edward, "protect you."

"I don't understand," I said.

"Demetri was the key," Rolle whispered, his voice sounded so far away. "He decided to go rogue and try to earn Caius' favor by dealing with Carlisle himself. Now they have no tracker. If they take me, you'll never have to worry about them again. I won't let them find you," he said, looking between the two of us.

Edward turned Rolle by his elbow. "No! Don't you see? Aro will know. As soon as he touches you, he'll know what you've done. He'll know why you did it."

Rolle's sad smile came back and he shook his head. "Not if I'm remembering Gillian. Not if I'm thinking about that day," he added, his voice straining with keeping the memory at bay. "That's why this is a good thing. I can think about her all the time." His eyes closed as if he were picturing Gillian in his mine now. "And I can keep you both safe. That's why I'm here. That's why I have to stay with them. That's how I can pay for what I did. It's my punishment and my salvation. This is how I can be with her always."

The words Alice said to me all those years ago flared in my mind. _Two sides of a coin._ If he was remembering Gillian, then he wouldn't remember how to be happy, he wouldn't be able to enjoy the music that seemed to pull him back from his pain. And I remembered his songs — glimmers, he called them. It all made sense now; how he was able to sing those songs that were so appropriate to each of us: his ability to mimic another's mind.

"God, Rolle," I gasped, realizing the full extent of what he was offering to sacrifice. "Your music!" Edward groaned as he, too, realized what was at risk here.

He shook his head, smiling sadly. "It doesn't matter. It's not important."

"We don't want you to do this," Edward insisted, his own voice full of pain.

Rolle's expression changed to a compassionate, knowing smile. "Don't be sad, Edward." He looked at me, but continued speaking to Edward. "You have everything here that you need to be happy." He faced Edward again. "You do everything and ANYthing to make sure she's safe or I'll kick your foolish head in. Don't." he said slowly, gently poking Edward's chest as he enunciated every word. "Become. Me."

Rolle pulled Edward into his arms and clutched him tight. "Don't lose the best part of who you are," he whispered to his friend.

Edward gripped him firmly in return, his face twisted with remorse.

When Rolle released him, he turned to hug me as well. "Take care of each other," he said, and then let me go, putting my hand in Edward's as he did.

"Friends come and go," he said, holding our joined hands between his. "Love can last a lifetime, but this... This!" he said giving our hands a single shake. "Makes the stars burn."

Rolle looked at both of us and then turned to leave. Before he disappeared around the corner, he paused and looked back. "Tell Carlisle that I didn't break my promise to him. Will you make sure he knows the truth?"

Edward wrapped his arm around my shoulders and opened his mouth, but no words came out as he nodded.

Rolle nodded once and put his hand over his heart, and then he was gone.

Edward was silent beside me, staring at the spot Rolle had been. He couldn't stop the frustrated sadness that made his arms and legs twitch as if he would run after his friend to stop him. After a long minute, he calmed and stilled, pulling me into his arms and burying his face against my neck.

"He really does love us," I said out loud as if it wouldn't be true otherwise. I felt Edward nod, but he said nothing. He just held me closer.

With a heavy sigh, he kissed my neck and leaned back to look at me.

"We have great friends," I said, smoothing my hands over his back to comfort him.

He struggled to control his voice, but it cracked despite his efforts. "Epic."

* * *

**SEQUEL ANNOUNCED — _Absolución_**

**A/N: **I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who have added me as a favorite author or have added "Antithesis" to your favorite story lists. I was stunned and delighted to have the story nominated for the Twilight Indies, and simply flabbergasted to have made it to the final rounds. Thank you!

The sequel for "Antithesis" will begin posting this month. The new story, called "Absolución" will pick up where the previous story left off and will be multi-threaded, following each group of characters as they go about their destinies. I will be posting the story as Absolucion, making it easier for folks to search, since unicode characters like that accent over the 'o' are hard to type on most keyboards.

I hope you come to enjoy the ride.

**A/N Addition: **This story, and it's sequel Absolución are up for several awards in multiple categories. Even if you don't for it, you should check out the nominated entries. The Avant Garde voting is here bit (dot) ly/aon921 and ends on Dec. 4th, 2010 and the Original Character Awards are here bit (dot) ly/go5FfR ending on Dec. 14th, 2010.


	14. Chapter 14 Deleted Scene

_A/N: The first three chapters of "Antithesis" take place after "Twilight", but I soon realized that Rolle would never tolerate Edward leaving Bella in "New Moon" so I played the vampire time card and kept Rolle out of SM's canon until after "Breaking Dawn."_

_I had, at one point however, entertained the idea of having Rolle face down the Volturi after Renesmee's birth and I began writing a scene where __Rolle finds his friend utterly distraught, and Bella utterly to blame! This scene is Rolle confronting Bella on her pregnancy._

_**Reminder: I have been updating my profile to answer questions that readers have posed in their reviews.**_

* * *

I opened my eyes to find Rolle looking down at me where I lay on the sofa. I say he was looking at me because his eyes were turned down to me, but his face was looking straight ahead. It made him look severe and detached. His white blonde hair shone unnaturally bright in contrast to his black turtleneck shirt. Even though his impenetrable regard made me self-conscious, I was still glad to see him – glad that he was here for Edward.

"I'm glad to see you, Rolle."

He didn't smile back in greeting. He just looked at me, scrutinizing me. I watched his eyes move down the length of my body, taking in my condition, but his body and posture was utterly still. It was like being examined by a statue.

"Does Edward know you're here?"

His eyes came back to rest on my face and something flickered behind the white gold of his eyes. He was suddenly agitated, but the only sign of it was the darting of his eyes as he seemed to want to look at everything and nothing all at once. His brow furrowed at last and he sighed.

"Why are you doing this?" he whispered.

I didn't hear condemnation in his voice and it was more than just a question to satisfy curiosity. This touched him deeply, but I had no idea why.

"Because I love him."

"You aren't doing this for him," Rolle said with certainty. "If you were to do anything for him, you would end this pain for both of you. Watching you go through this is killing him as surely as it is killing you."

"I want this for both of us."

"_You_ want…" he pointed out. "You. Not him."

I don't know why I cared if he understood me or not, but part of me hoped if I could convince _him_, _he_ could convince Edward.

"I love him. I love him more than anything. This," I said, rubbing my hand over my stomach, "is part of him as much as it is part of me. It's the representation of us both."

I was shaking my head even as I was saying the words. It was true, but it wasn't the reason. What was the reason?

I huffed in annoyance with myself.

"I never thought about being a mother. It never even entered my mind. I'm eighteen. Before I met Edward, my only goal in life was to finish school, go to college, have a place of my own, make a decent living. Even after I met Edward the only thing I thought about was being good enough to keep him, finding a way to be with him forever, trying to convince him that becoming what he is – becoming a vampire – wasn't a horrible idea because we could be together always.

"Being a wife? Being a mother? They weren't things I was planning. But when I realized I was pregnant... that my love for Edward had physical tangible proof, it felt like our love was so big that it had to grow beyond us. It had to flow over into a whole other person that we created together. Needing and wanting this baby feels like having our love leave a mark on the world. It's more than just how we feel about each other. It's like our love will last forever through our child."

"A testament," Rolle murmured. "A sign, evidence that you loved each other."

Rolle leaned forward, resting his hands on the back of the sofa to support himself. He lowered his chin and closed his eyes, and the pain in his face was so profound that I felt tears in my own eyes.

"Gillian wanted to have my baby," he whispered. "When she mentioned it I argued against her. I was afraid to share her love. I was afraid something would happen to her. I was afraid I'd lose her in childbirth and be left alone with a baby I didn't want when all I wanted was her. I was selfish and I turned it back on her – thought _she_ was the one being selfish, that I wasn't enough and she needed more regardless of the risks. But now I think she meant it as a gift that we would both love. I think..." his voice broke as he forced out the words, "she wanted us to leave proof of our love in the world. And I told her no."

I put my hand over his and squeezed his fingers. I don't know if he felt it. I know when he got this way, when his eidetic memories consumed him, that he was almost catatonic.

"I know it _sounds_ selfish that I want this baby when Edward is so afraid for me," I explained to him. "But I can't destroy what our love for each other has created. I know this is the right thing, and I know he'll see it too."

He opened his eyes at last and looked at me, and I almost wished he hadn't. His eyes were so bereft that it sent a jolt of my own memory through me. It was the same look I'd seen on my face when had Edward left me.

"I swore to protect you. I swore to protect what you have together."

"This..." I said, rubbing my swollen stomach, "is what we have together, too."

He sighed deeply still frustrated but now torn about what he believed. He knew he could not convince me, and now he wasn't sure he should try.

Rolle placed his free hand on my wrist and bent down, kissing the back of my hand. When he straightened up he seemed unable to look at me again.

"I'll be nearby if you need me."

"Thank you," was all I could think to say.

I couldn't ask Rolle to try to talk to Edward for me. I knew even if I had swayed him to my point of view, he could never argue my case. The pain he lived with every moment of every day was exactly what Edward was afraid of.


	15. Chapter 15 More Stimulations from Ch 3

_A/N: These are the songs Rolle played in Chapter 3. Some of the lyrics were changed to better suit what he was doing. And yes, for those who PM'd me, Rolle was using his gift to "mimic" the minds of the couples he was singing to. When Bella realizes that the songs are "too" perfect, and "too" specific, it's because they ARE._

_The two songs that personify Rolle's history and state of mind are __UNTITLED, by Simple Plan and BROKEN, by Lifehouse._

_Lyrics for the songs are listed below.  
__  
__**Reminder: I have been updating my profile to answer questions that readers have posed in their reviews, and included links to "who plays Rolle in my movie" and a story banner for folks to add to their forum sig files.**_

_**One more bonus chapter to go! For those folks who really liked Rolle, you'll love and hate this chapter. It's… well, it's long.

* * *

**__  
_

MAYBE IT'S LOVE (Edward and Bella)

By Trisha Yearwood

Everybody's heart aches  
Every time it opens  
You don't know if you'll win or lose  
You have to just let go

No I wasn't looking  
It's funny how I found you  
Just when I thought  
I'd live my life alone

Maybe it's love  
That I have longed for  
Maybe it's love  
I should be strong for  
I'm tearing down the walls inside  
I want to laugh, and cry and kiss  
Maybe it's love  
I miss

I've close my heart down  
So many seasons  
I didn't want to hurt again  
I didn't want to try

So I turned myself to ice and stone  
Said I don't need anyone  
And nobody else  
Would ever make me cry

Maybe it's love  
I've run away from  
Maybe it's love  
Bringing me back home  
I'm tearing down the walls inside  
I want to laugh, and cry and kiss  
Maybe it's love I miss

So put your arms around me now  
Hold me tight  
Show me how  
No one has ever loved me more  
I've waited for so long

Maybe it's love  
Maybe I'm dreaming  
Maybe it's love  
I can believe in  
I'm tearing down the walls inside  
I want to laugh, and cry and kiss  
Maybe it's love  
Maybe it's love  
Maybe it's love  
Like this

GOTTA BE SOMEBODY (Edward)  
By Nickelback

This time, I wonder what it feels like  
To find the one in this life, the one we all dream of  
But dreams just aren't enough  
So I'll be waiting for the real thing, I'll know it by the feeling  
The moment when we're meeting, will play out like a scene  
Straight off the silver screen  
So I'll be holding my own breath, right up 'til the end  
Until that moment when, I find the one that I'll spend forever with

Cause nobody wants to be the last one there  
Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares  
Someone to love with my life in their hands  
There's gotta be somebody for me like that  
Cause nobody wants to do it on their own  
And everyone wants to know they're not alone  
There's somebody else that feels the same somewhere  
There's gotta be somebody for me out there

Tonight, out on the street, out in the moonlight  
And dammit this feels too right, it's just like deja vu  
Me standing here with you  
So I'll be holding my own breath, could this be the end  
Is it that moment when, I find the one that I'll spend forever with

Cause nobody wants to be the last one there  
Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares  
Someone to love with my life in their hands  
There's gotta be somebody for me like that  
Cause nobody wants to do it on their own  
And everyone wants to know they're not alone  
There's somebody else that feels the same somewhere  
There's gotta be somebody for me out there

You can't give up, looking for a diamond in the rough  
You never know, when it shows up, make sure you're holding on  
Cause it could be the one, the one you're waiting on  
Cause nobody wants to be the last one there  
And everyone wants to feel like someone cares  
Someone to love with my life in their hands  
There's gotta be somebody for me, ohhh

Nobody wants to do it on their own  
And everyone wants to know their not alone  
There's somebody else that feels the same somewhere  
There's gotta be somebody for me out there  
Nobody wants to be the last one there  
Cause everyone wants to feel like someone cares  
There's somebody else that feels the same somewhere  
There's gotta be somebody for me out there

ADDICTED (Emmett and Rosalie)  
By Saving Abel

I'm so addicted to  
All the things you do  
When you're going down on me  
In between the sheets  
Or the sound you make  
With every breath you take  
It's unlike anything  
When you're loving me

Oh girl lets take it slow  
So as for you,  
Well you know where to go  
I want to take my love  
And hate you til the end

It's not like you to turn away  
From all the bullshit I can't take  
It's not like me to walk away

I'm so addicted to  
All the things you do  
When you're going down on me  
In between the sheets  
Or the sound you make  
With every breath you take  
It's unlike anything  
When you're loving me

Yeah

I know when it's getting rough  
All the times we spend  
Trying to make this love  
Something better than  
Just making love again

It's not like you to turn away  
All the bullshit I can't take  
Just when I think I can walk away,

I'm so addicted to  
All the things you do  
When you're going down on me  
In between the sheets  
Or the sound you make  
With every breath you take  
It's unlike anything

I'm so addicted to  
The things you do  
When you're going down on me  
Or the sound you make  
With every breath you take  
It's unlike anything  
When you're loving me

When you're loving me

How can I make it through  
All the things you do  
There's just got to be more to you and me

I'm so addicted to  
All the things you do  
When you're going down on me  
In between the sheets  
Or the sound you make  
With every breath you take  
It's unlike anything  
It's unlike anything

I'm so addicted to  
All the things you do  
When you're going down on me

Or the sound you make  
With every breath you take  
It's unlike anything  
I'm so addicted to you  
Addicted to you

UNTITLED (Rolle)  
By Simple Plan

I open my eyes  
I try to see but I'm blinded by the white light  
I can't remember how  
I can't remember why  
I'm lying here tonight

And I can't stand the pain  
And I can't make it go away  
No I can't stand the pain

How could this happen to me  
I made my mistakes  
I've got no where to run  
The night goes on  
As I'm fading away  
I'm sick of this life  
I just wanna scream  
How could this happen to me

Everybody's screaming  
I try to make a sound but no one hears me  
I'm slipping off the edge  
I'm hanging by a thread  
I wanna start this over again

So I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered  
And I can't explain what happened  
And I can't erase the things that I've done  
No I can't

How could this happen to me  
I made my mistakes  
I've got no where to run  
The night goes on  
As I'm fading away  
I'm sick of this life  
I just wanna scream  
How could this happen to me

I made my mistakes  
I've got no where to run  
The night goes on  
As I'm fading away  
I'm sick of this life  
I just wanna scream  
How could this happen to me

LOVE REMAINS THE SAME (Carlisle and Esme)  
By Gavin Rossdale

A thousand times I've seen you standing  
Gravity like lunar landing  
You make me want to run till' I find you  
I shut the world away from here  
I drift to you, you're all I hear  
As everything we know fades to black

Half the time the world is ending  
Truth is I am done pretending

I never thought that I  
Had anymore to give  
You're pushing me so far  
Here I am without you  
Drink to all that we have lost  
Mistakes we have made  
Everything will change  
But love remains the same

I find a place where we escape  
Take you with me for the space  
The city buzz sounds just like a fridge  
I walk the streets through seven bars  
I have to find just where you are  
The faces seem to blur  
They're all the same

Half the time the world is ending  
Truth is I am done pretending

I never thought that I  
Had anymore to give  
You're pushing me so far  
Here I am without you  
Drink to all that we have lost  
Mistakes we have made  
Everything will change  
But love remains the same

So much more to say  
So much to be done  
Don't you trick me out  
We shall overcome  
It's all left still to play

We should've had the sun  
Could have been inside  
Instead we're over here

Half the time the world is ending  
Truth is I am done pretending  
Too much time too long defending  
You and I are done pretending

I never thought that I  
Had anymore to give  
You're pushing me so far  
Here I am without you  
Drink to all that we have lost  
Mistakes we have made  
Everything will change  
Everything will change

I, oh I,  
I wish this could last forever  
I, oh I,  
As if we could last forever

Love remains the same  
Love remains the same

SHATTERED (Jasper and Alice)  
By O.A.R.

In a way, I need a change  
From this burnout scene  
Another time, another town  
Another everything  
But it's always back to you

Stumble out, in the night  
From the pouring rain  
Made the block, sat and thought  
There's more I need  
It's always back to you

But I'm (no) good without ya  
Yeah, I'm (no) good without you  
Yeah, yeah, yeah

How many times can I break till I shatter?  
Over the line can't define what I'm after  
I always turn the car around  
Give me a break let me make my own pattern  
All that it takes is some time but I'm shattered  
I always turn the car around

I had no idea that the night  
Would take so damn long  
Took it out, on the street  
While the rain still falls  
Push me back to you

But I'm (no) good without ya  
Yeah, I'm (no) good without you  
Yeah, yeah, yeah

How many times can I break till I shatter?  
Over the line can't define what I'm after  
I always turn the car around  
Give me a break let me make my own pattern  
All that it takes is some time but I'm shattered  
I always turn the car around

Give it up, give it up, baby  
Give it up, give it up, now  
Now

How many times can I break till I shatter?  
Over the line can't define what I'm after  
I always turn the car around  
All that I feel is the realness I'm faking  
Taking my time but it's time that I'm wasting  
Always turn the car around

How many times can I break till I shatter?  
Over the line can't define what I'm after  
I always turn the car around

(Go on and) Don't wanna turn that car around  
I gotta turn this thing around

I'M YOURS (Edward and Bella)  
By Jason Mraz

Well you done done me and you bet I felt it  
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted  
I fell right through the cracks, now I'm trying to get back

Before the cool done run out, I'll be giving it my bestest  
And nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention  
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some

But I won't hesitate no more, no more  
It cannot wait, I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me  
Open up your plans and damn you're free  
Look into your heart and you'll find love love love love

Listen to the music of the moment people, dance and sing  
We're just one big family  
And it's our God-forsaken right to be loved loved loved loved loved

So I won't hesitate no more, no more  
It cannot wait, I'm sure  
There's no need to complicate, our time is short  
This is our fate, I'm yours

D-d-do do you, but do you, d-d-do  
But do you want to come on  
Scooch on over closer dear  
And I will nibble your ear

I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror  
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer  
But my breath fogged up the glass  
And so I drew a new face and I laughed

I guess what I be saying is there ain't no better reason  
To rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons  
It's what we aim to do, our name is our virtue

But I won't hesitate no more, no more  
It cannot wait, I'm yours

Come on and open up your mind and see like me  
(I won't hesitate)  
Open up your plans and damn you're free  
(No more, no more)  
Look into your heart and you'll find that the sky is yours  
(It cannot wait, I'm sure)

So please don't, there's no need  
(There's no need to complicate)  
There's no need to complicate  
(Our time is short)  
'Cause our time is short  
(This is our fate)  
This is, this is, this is our fate  
I'm yours

Oh, I'm yours  
Oh, I'm yours  
Oh, whoa, baby you believe I'm yours  
You best believe, best believe I'm yours

BROKEN (Rolle)  
By Lifehouse

The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight  
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time  
I am here still waiting though I still have my doubts  
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
With a broken heart that's still beating  
In the pain there is healing  
In your name I find meaning

The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head  
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead  
And I still see your reflection inside of my eyes  
That are looking for purpose, they're still looking for life

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
With a broken heart that's still beating  
In the pain is the healing  
In your name I find meaning  
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on  
I'm barely holdin' on to you

I'm hangin' on another day  
Just to see what you will throw my way  
And I'm hangin' on to the words you say  
You said that I will, will be ok

The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone  
I may have lost my way now, having forgot my way home

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
With a broken heart that's still beating  
In the pain is there is healing  
In your name I find meaning  
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on  
I'm barely holdin' on to you  
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on

BETTER IN TIME (Rolle)  
By Leona Lewis  
**  
**(Ooooh)  
It's been the longest winter without you  
I didn't know where to turn to  
See somehow I can't forget you  
After all that we've been through

Going coming thought I heard a knock  
Who's there no one  
Thinking that I deserve it  
Now I realize that I really didn't know  
If you didn't notice you mean everything  
Quickly I'm learning to love again  
All I know is I'mma be ok

[Chorus:]  
Thought I couldn't live without you  
It's gonna hurt when it heals too  
It'll all get better in time  
Even though I really love you  
I'm gonna smile cause I deserve to  
It'll all get better in time

I couldn't turn on the TV  
Without something there to remind me  
Was it all that easy  
To just put aside your feelings

If I'm dreaming don't wanna laugh  
Hurt my feelings but that's the path  
I'll believe in  
And I know time will heal it  
If you didn't notice boy you mean everything  
Quickly I'm learning to love again  
All I know is I'mma be ok

[Chorus:]  
Thought I couldn't live without you  
It's gonna hurt when it heals too  
It'll all get better in time  
Even though I really love you  
I'm gonna smile cause I deserve to  
It'll all get better in time

Since there's no more you and me  
It's time I let you go  
So I can be free  
And live my life how it should be  
No matter how hard it is I'll be fine without you  
Yes I will

[Chorus: x2]  
Thought I couldn't live without you  
It's gonna hurt when it heals too  
It'll all get better in time  
Even though I really love you  
I'm gonna smile cause I deserve to (yes I do)  
It'll all get better in time

I WANT YOU (ending on an upbeat)  
By Savage Garden

(Verse 1)

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes  
And I am taken to a place  
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings  
Take up shelter in the base of my spine  
Sweet like a chica cherry cola  
I don't need to try to explain  
I just hold on tight and If it happens again  
I may move so slightly to the arms  
And the lips and the face  
Of The Human Cannonball that  
I need to I want to...

(Bridge)

Come stand a little bit closer  
Breathe in and get a bit higher  
You'll never know what hit you when  
I get to you

(Chorus)

Ooh I want you, I don't know if I need you but  
Ooh I'd die to find out  
Ooh I want you, I don't know if I need you but  
Ooh I'd die to find out

(Verse 2)

I'm the kind of person who endorses a deep commitment  
Getting comfy getting perfect is what I live for  
But a look and then a smell of perfume  
It's like I'm down on the floor  
And I Don't know what I'm in for  
Conversation has a time and place in the interaction  
Of a lover and a mate but the time of talking  
Using symbols, using words can be likened  
To a deep sea diver who is swimming with a raincoat

(Bridge)

(Chorus)  
Ooh, ahh...  
Ooh, ahh...  
(Verse 1)

UNWRITTEN  
By Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten,  
Can't read my mind  
I'm undefined  
I'm just beginning  
The pen's in my hand  
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you  
Open up the dirty window  
Let the sun illuminate the words  
That you could not find  
Reaching for something in the distance  
So close you can almost taste it  
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin  
No one else can feel it for you  
Only you can let it in  
No one else, no one else  
Can speak the words on your lips  
Drench yourself in words unspoken  
Live your life with arms wide open  
Today is where your book begins  
The rest is still unwritten, yeah

Oh, oh

I break tradition  
Sometimes my tries  
Are outside the lines, oh yeah yeah  
We've been conditioned  
To not make mistakes  
But I can't live that way oh, oh

Staring at the blank page before you  
Open up the dirty window  
Let the sun illuminate the words  
That you could not find  
Reaching for something in the distance  
So close you can almost taste it  
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin  
No one else can feel it for you  
Only you can let it in  
No one else, no one else  
Can speak the words on your lips  
drench yourself in words unspoken  
Live your life with arms wide open  
Today is where your book begins  
the rest still unwritten

(Gospel)  
Staring at the blank page before you  
Open up the dirty window  
Let the sun illuminate the words  
That you could not find  
Reaching for something in the distance  
So close you can almost taste it  
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin  
No one else can feel it for you  
Only you can let it in  
No one else, no one else  
Can speak the words on your lips  
Drench yourself in words unspoken  
Live you life with arms wide open  
Today is where your book begins

The rest is still unwritten

The rest is still unwritten

NO AIR  
By Jordin Sparks

Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air

If I should die before I wake  
It's 'cause you took my breath away  
Losing you is like living in a world with no air  
Oh

I'm here alone, didn't wanna leave  
My heart won't move, it's incomplete  
Wish there was a way that I can make you understand

But how do you expect me  
To live alone with just me  
'Cause my world revolves around you  
It's so hard for me to breathe

[Chorus]  
Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air  
Can't live, can't breathe with no air  
That's how I feel whenever you ain't there  
There's no air, no air  
Got me out here in the water so deep  
Tell me how you gon' be without me  
If you ain't here, I just can't breathe  
There's no air, no air

No air, air  
No air, air  
No air, air  
No air, air

I walked, I ran, I jumped, I flew  
Right off the ground to float to you  
There's no gravity to hold me down for real

But somehow I'm still alive inside  
You took my breath, but I survived  
I don't know how, but I don't even care

So how do you expect me  
To live alone with just me  
'Cause my world revolves around you  
It's so hard for me to breathe

[Chorus]  
Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air  
Can't live, can't breathe with no air  
That's how I feel whenever you ain't there  
There's no air, no air  
Got me out here in the water so deep  
Tell me how you gon' be without me  
If you ain't here, I just can't breathe  
There's no air, no air

No air, air  
No air, air  
No air, air  
No air, air  
No more  
There's no air, no air

Ooohhhhh...

[Chorus]  
Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air  
Can't live, can't breathe with no air  
That's how I feel whenever you ain't there  
There's no air, no air  
Got me out here in the water so deep  
Tell me how you gon' be without me  
If you ain't here, I just can't breathe  
There's no air, no air

[Chorus]  
Tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air  
Can't live, can't breathe with no air  
That's how I feel whenever you ain't there  
There's no air, no air  
Got me out here in the water so deep  
Tell me how you gon' be without me  
If you ain't here, I just can't breathe  
There's no air, no air

No air, air  
No air, air  
No air, air

No air


	16. Chapter 16 The Making, Part 1

_A/N: This prolog is the telling of the event that created Rolle. I know it's not "Twilight", nor is it Edward and Bella, but some of you have fallen in love with Rolle along the way and I wanted to thank you for your kind words for this lost soul._

_**Reminder: I have been updating my profile to answer questions that readers have posed in their reviews.**_

* * *

**Unreal Again**

Rolle's forearm draped over her shoulders across the seat of the car. Her hand rested high on his thigh in a vaguely possessive gesture as he caressed the side of her neck with his fingers, smiling at the joy on her face. Gillian's smile deepened as she raised her shoulder, catching his fingers against her. The motion brought her ear to his fingertips, so he ran his finger along the soft shell of her ear through her auburn hair. They watched their friends — their family — laughing and joking.

Their band-mates were in rare form enjoying the hot fall day as the Santa Ana's bullied their way through the city toward the ocean. The change from New York was a welcomed one, not only because of the accommodating weather this time of year, but simply because having money was better than not.

Only four months ago, most of them had been street performers living day to day on scraps and the few coins they could earn. When one gig led to another, their luck finally turned. A booking agent and plane trip later and they were in Los Angeles with homes and cars. Sure, they were used and meager possessions compared to what was possible, but something was better than nothing. When you come from nothing and suddenly have more than you've ever had in your entire life, it was a blessing.

When you had the love of your life at your side, it was paradise.

The drive-in restaurant wasn't very busy. Not working an eight to five job meant that afternoon lunches at two required no waiting, and allowed the staff to have fun as well without the urgency of serving thirty meals at once.

Rolle and Gillian, and half of their band-mates sat in the Chevy Bel-Air having napkin wars through the windows with the old, beat up Hudson parked next to them. Del and Connor were in the back seat. Connor was making the ammo, and Del manned the rubber-band canon.

There was currently a lull in the battle as the two rival cars feverishly restocked their supplies.

Connor's twin sister was giggling hysterically as she booby-trapped her ammo with pockets of ketchup within the napkins. Paden was the exact image of her brother in a female form: a perfect blending of physical features in a softened feminine frame, and she was just as much of a prankster.

In the Hudson with her was Philly and Brigs. For all intents and purposes, it was a car full of instigators. They had started the napkin war by shooting paper wads through their windows. It had escalated from there.

Rolle picked up his wadded napkin and whipped it at Brigs, hitting the drummer on the cheek even as the waitress came by to pick up their tray off the car window. His attack started a whole new volley of napkin fire now that the hooligans were properly supplied with fresh ammo. Squeals and shouts erupted again from both cars. Paden lobbed her napkin over Brigs' shoulder through the window and left a bloody-looking smack on her brother.

"Hey!" Con exclaimed. "You're supposed to be my loving sister!" he cried in betrayal.

"Friendly fire," she laughed back at him.

"Take that, you nipper!" Brigs cried in his native accent, and letting loose a rubber band propelled wad. Gillian squealed and ducked.

"Hey! Watch it! You know, it's all fun and games until somebody looses an eye," Gillian scolded, trying to sound firm.

"And then, hey, _free eye ball!_" Rolle added.

Another ketchup-doctored napkin flew at them.

"Shee-it, boay. You gotta do bedder n'at," Del leered in a southern drawl, mocking Brigs' Australian tongue with an American one, and picking up a onion ring with evil intents.

"AAaaaiiiiii-Aaii! NO! No food, you guys promised!" the waitress cried.

"Whattya worried about, Lucy? The gulls'll get it."

"You promised!" she repeated. "And stop already with the ketchup! You guys are killing me!"

"All right, you hooligans," a familiar voice said from behind. "Knock it off."

Everyone turned at once, each with their own exclamation of happiness. "Hey! Jack!! What kept you? Where you been? How's it goin'? DUCK!"

That last came from Brigs who proceeded to bombard Jack with what was left of his napkin stash. Jack ducked behind the Hudson and grabbed the bumper, lifting and dropping it until he had it bouncing enough to do damage if he kept it up.

"Okay! Okay! I surrender!" Brigs yelled. "Don't take it out on the car, you damn Irish Yankee! It's gotta get us to San Diego in the morning!"

"Brigs?" Jack said stopping suddenly and leaning in with extreme concern.

Brigs was taken aback by Jack's sudden change in reaction, thinking that something was really wrong. "What?" he asked, his eyes wide.

"Get stuffed."

That comment elicited nothing but hysterical laughter from the others. Brigs just sneered and nodded, his expression saying that Jack's time would come. Light-hearted revenge was the silent promise made.

Gillian got out and gave Jack a hug. "What kept you?"

"Just got sidetracked," Jack said evasively.

"How's the show's lights going, Jack-o-lantern?" Philly asked.

"Done and ready to go. It was just some loose connections. You gotta watch the roadies a little better when they're packing that thing up, Philly, or those bulbs will start an electrical fire."

"Sorry," Paden apologized. "That was supposed to be me. I got distracted."

"Yeah," Brigs said, overly loud. "Distracted by a dark haired, green-eyed Adonis who wanted her phone number." For which his comment earned him a sharp poke in the ribs with her elbow.

While the others laughed, Jack checked over his shoulder. "Are you ready to go?" he asked suddenly.

"What's the rush, Jack?" Rolle asked, his eyes picking up his friend's unease.

Jack could see Rolle's unspoken question, but he did not elaborate. He simply looked back at Rolle and was rescued from the impending silence by Philly.

"Hey, it's smooth. Don't worry. We gotta head over to Burbank and pick up the demos."

Jack nodded. "I need to get to Santa Monica."

"We'll give you a lift!" Del offered. "Philly, why don't you guys go and get the cuts and we'll shuffle Jack around?"

"Sounds like a plan. That okay with you?"

No one but Rolle noticed Jack's hesitation or the furtive glance over his shoulder. "Yeah, sure."

"Shotgun!" Connor shouted with glee and clambered over the seat that Gillian had just vacated, practically falling into Rolle's lap as he did so.

"You know Jill gets car sick!" Del scolded him.

"No, that's okay," Gillian said as she climbed in the back seat. "I'll be okay as long as I'm near the window."

Rolle got out and handed the keys to Del, trading places with him to sit with Gillian. She smiled and tugged on his fingers to slide over. He wrapped his arm over her shoulders as he pressed a tender kiss against her neck.

Jack climbed in behind Del as Lucy took their tray away.

"Next time you guys want to have a war," she warned, "go to McDonalds!"

"_I'll_ help you clean up, Loos," Paden offered, and climbed out of the Hudson.

"We'll meet you back at Row and Jill's place," Del told Philly as he started the car and put it in reverse.

"You want a key?" Jill asked the others.

"Nah, it's almost rush hour. You guys'll beat us back by at least an hour," Philly said even as Brigs held up a copy of their key behind his head, doing a little dance with it in the air.

Rolle and Gillian laughed as their car pulled away. They watched as Philly turned to see what Brigs was doing behind his back to illicit their laughter. The last they heard as the Bel-Air slid away noisily was Philly smack-fighting Brigs.

They pulled onto the throughway that was already a thick stream of heavy traffic, but at least everything was moving. Del turned down the radio so he could still talk and listen with the windows down. Connor was talking animatedly with his hands, and Gillian was busily snuggled up with Rolle.

Jack, however, was preoccupied, looking around at the cars near them in traffic when a sedan started to rapidly close the distance between them.

And it drove past. The sedan changed lanes in front of them, Jack relaxed a bit before he realized that he was the object of Rolle's intense scrutiny. He looked at Jack, then at the sedan ahead of them, then back at Jack again with a question in his eyes. He never got an answer.

The sedan slammed on its brakes and the Bel-Air did a 55mph dive into its trunk starting a vicious chain-cycle of collisions.

They were hit from behind by another sedan and again by a sports car. The Chevy was shoved to the right and the left rear door flew open. Jack and Rolle were thrown from the car as havoc rained around them. They landed in a tangle of arms and legs in the thorny bushes that landscaped the roadside.

Car upon car piled into the accident, none of them able to stop before colliding with the growing tragedy and all of them focusing on the Chevy Bel-Air as if it were a bizarre magnet. Tires screamed, metal folded, a bus, a van, a tanker truck, a motorcycle... it grew in leaps and bounds. One car leaped the cement barrier into the eastbound traffic causing havoc there, too—others flipped to their sides or upside down. A cacophony of wailing automobiles reverberated down the expressway like thunder rolling in the distance, until only minor fender benders were the spreading ripples.

Then silence claimed dominion for a fraction of a second as shock and fear settled over the unwilling participants of the accident. A baby cried.

When Rolle and Jack, bloodied and disoriented, finally pulled themselves to the pavement, the sight that greeted them turned their blood to ice. They couldn't see their car anymore. It had been pushed and shoved over 200 yards further up the expressway. People were getting out of their cars, helping the others who were more seriously hurt. Staggering against each other, Rolle and Jack walked in shock, then jogged as realization began to hit them, then ran at full speed despite their own injuries to find their friends.

The further they got into the heart of the accident, the less they could recognize. Even the tanker truck was wrinkled and creased like a shirt that hadn't been ironed. When they got to the front of the accident, the Bel-Air wasn't there. The sedan that had been following them was gone as well! For a moment reality spun away. It wasn't possible! They searched frantically. Could it have all been a nightmare?

No.

There.

In the middle of a wad of car bodies that had been pressed together into one huge metallic lump was the funny yellow-green color of Del's car.

Crazily, they scrambled over the sharp and torn metal of the other cars to get to their friends. The Chevy was less than a third its original size. Parts were missing or folded over. Rolle clambered down into a spot before the windshield and nearly made himself sick.

What was left of Del was still alive. Half of his face was crushed, blood flowed from an empty eye socket. His blood soaked shirt did nothing to hide the fact that the steering wheel was embedded in his chest. His left arm was gone with the car door.

"Rolle," he wheezed and reached for his friend with his only hand through the non-existent windshield. He smeared blood over Rolle's neck as he grabbed for him.

"God, Del," Rolle cried, tears welling up and blinding him.

Del swallowed spit and blood uselessly from his mouth and tried to breath making a ghastly bubbling sound. His glassy stare from one eye locked with Rolle's. His grip on Rolle's neck tightened as the pain became unbearable and he made a strained sound that could have been words or a cry of pain and then he became very still, his shattered face still looking at Rolle.

Jack crushed his eyes closed, looking down on the scene from above Rolle's cubbyhole in the middle of the wreckage. A choking sob shook Jack's frame and the pressure from it nearly made him pass out. His head was bleeding badly.

Rolle's internal defenses slowly closed him in and he became an automaton as his mind stopped processing what had happened. Connor was below Del and Rolle crawled through the front of the car to reach him. He was alive but unconscious. There was no way to tell how badly he was hurt. He was wedged between the seat and the dashboard from the chest down.

An all-too familiar soft crying reached Rolle above the wailing of the other victims outside in the carnage. A cold rock appeared in his stomach as his mind leapt back into gear.

"Gillian!!" he screamed.

"Roll-eeee," came the thin whining response.

Terror blinded him and guided him. His movements became careless and frantic as he clawed his way back to her, adding to his cuts and scrapes on the sharp metal and glass. He pulled the wrecked back seat away and found her there twisted in with the metal and cloth that formed a grotesque cocoon. Her soft auburn hair was matted with blood. He could barely reach her through the wreckage. She groped painfully for his hand as he reached for her and caught his fingertips with her own, holding onto him with what little strength she had left.

"Don't leave me," she whispered.

"I'm not. I'm not. I'll never leave you," he promised. "Jack!" he shouted frantically over his shoulder.

"I can't move."

"Don't try to. Just be still. Help will be here soon." He yelled again over his shoulder, calling for help.

"I'm scared, Rolle. I'm so scared."

"I know, baby, but I'm here. I won't let you go."

She nodded weakly, the shock and adrenaline were taking hold of her. _She was so pale!_ "Jack!" Rolle shouted back. "_Jack!_ Help me!"

Jack pulled himself down through the hole Rolle went through, despite his blurring vision. _My fault, my fault, my fault_, kept running through his mind.

"You gotta help me. She's trapped," Rolle said breathlessly. In the distance, the faintest sounds of approaching sirens added to the discord.

Jack worked his way closer, but couldn't do any better than Rolle who was smaller than he was. He climbed back out to see if he could get to her from the other direction, but another flattened car and corpse blocked his passage from the other side. Wherever he turned, he found the cars densely packed around the lifeless Chevy. There was no way to get through. Their only hope was to cut through the wreckage.

Gillian refused to let Rolle go, even for a moment. He watched helplessly as she got weaker and weaker. Her hand was cold and sweaty. Rolle beat his free hand against the metal desperately to get closer.

"Come on, Gill. Stay with me. Talk to me," he urged, squeezing her hand.

The sirens were closer now, some of them already arriving and turning off. Voices shouted orders. Rolle could hear Jack stand up on the car above them, shouting for someone to come and help them, adding his voice to the others. There was a loud bump as Jack fell over, almost fainting again. Rolle knew his friend had a concussion, noticed it when Jack came to help him. His pupils were dilated, but he couldn't help him now, not with Gillian's life slipping slowly away.

He heard Jack regain his feet and stagger off for help, so he urged Gillian again to speak to him. All sound around them seemed to disappear as Rolle focused only on his love's pale face.

"Wha' should ah say?" she slurred through the growing darkness.

Rolle sniffed. "Anything. Tell me anything."

Gill's eyes fluttered, trying with all her strength to keep them open, focusing on Rolle's terror stricken face above her. "When I w's a lil' girl, m' daddy use' ta take me t'the park by r'house, 'n I use' t'play on the merry-go-round."

Rolle forced a smile for her. "Yeah? Was it just one of those round ones that you had to hold on to so you didn't go flying off?"

"Nnnooo." Her tongue didn't seem to want to work anymore. "I' had lil' animals on it 'n I'd always sit on the bunny rabbit 'cuz m' grama tol' me a story with a bunny in it."

"What?" Rolle choked. "What story? Do you remember?"

_Someone — Jack? A rescue worker? — was outside the car._

"Mm-hmm," she replied sleepily. "I' was called, 'The Velveteen Rabbit.'"

Rolle started to cry in earnest again, knowing why she thought of this story now, here. "I don't think I've ever heard it," he lied. "Tell me how it goes."

"I' was 'bout this stuffed bunny made a velvet," she murmured.

_People were climbing around the car. There was a sound over his head, but he couldn't look up, he couldn't look away, not when he had so little time left._

"Jill, baby, please," he whimpered. "Tell me about the rabbit," his voice cracked and he sniffed again.

"See, the bunny wan'd t'know wha' i'z like to be real, 'n..." she trailed off, unable to finish.

If she couldn't talk, he'd have to talk for her—something, _anything_ to keep her with him. "_'What is real? asked the rabbit one day when they were lying side by side near the nursery,'_" Rolle quoted for her.

Gillian smiled and choked back a sob of her own. This was _their_ story. The story they talked about after the first night they spent together. The story that had described how they felt about each other.

"_'Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick out handle?'_

_'Real isn't how you are made, said the skin horse. It's a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you. Then you become real.'_

_'Does it hurt? asked the rabbit,'_" Rolle continued through his tears and aching throat.

"_'Sometimes,'_" Gillian whispered back to him, picking up part of the story, "_'said the skin horse, f'r he w's always truthful. When you're real y' don't mind being hurt.'_"

"_'Does it happen all at once... like being wound up... or bit by bit?'_" Rolle asked with honest painful curiosity. He truly wanted to know, using the rabbit's words for himself.

"_'It doesn'... happen... all a' once. It takes a long time.'_" Her words were mere breaths, painful and shallow. "_'That's why it doesn'... happen to people who break easily... or who... have to be... carefully kept.'_" She started leaving out little parts as the darkness offered her an escape from the pain. She refused to go. She had to make sure he knew. Rolle had to know. "_'...By the time yer real, most 'a yer hair's been l-loved off... 'n your eyes drop out... 'n you get... loose... in the joints... 'n v-very shabby, but these things don' matter at 'll, 'cuz once... yer real... you can't be ugly... except to... people... who don't understand. Once you become real, you can't become unreal again.'_" She couldn't go on. She lifted her eyes to him, imploring him.

"_'It lasts for always,'_" Rolle finished.

Gillian smiled a ghost of a smile and squeezed his fingertips.

"God, Gillian. No." Tears streamed down his face in earnest now, drop after drop. "I love you so much. Please, don't. Don't go. Don't leave. Please!" his voice squeaked.

"I love you... for always," and she slipped away.

Rolle pressed his chest against the ragged metal, nudging it. Again. Again harder. "No," he whispered. "No. _No!_ Nonono!" His breath caught in his throat and he pounded his fist over and over into the beaten metal body of the car. He didn't even hear the power tools behind him trying to free Connor.

"NO!" he screamed, and a hand reached in and pulled him out of the car.

Jack pulled him out despite his struggling to stay with her. He held Rolle from behind, pinning his arms to his side while he thrashed and kicked, moving him out of the way of the firemen while they worked to save Connor's life. He pulled Rolle out over the top of the mangled cars and jumped to the ground with him held fast. Jack trapped Rolle's thrashing body with his own against the remains of another car, holding his hysterical friend tightly. His own tears fell freely and blood started to flow into his eye from his head wound. He sobbed with Rolle, ignoring the pressure and pain it created, knowing that he deserved it for jeopardizing all their lives.

Rolle's hysterics slowly subsided into heart-breaking sobs, Jack turned him in his arms to hold him. Rolle cried on his shoulder, refusing to look at the bodies that were pulled from the wreckage. Connor was the only one that they used any care with, carefully moving him onto a backboard and strapping him in before pressing needles into his arms. The others were pulled out and laid on the concrete in pools of their own blood before black plastic was draped over their bodies.

They were gone. She was gone. There was no one. No one to make him real.

_'It lasts for always.'_

But 'always' ended when she died.

Rolland Tylor was unreal.

"It's my fault. It's all my fault," Jack whispered through his tears. "There's a contract out on my life. He was trying to kill me. He just wanted me, just me!"

From a distance his words filtered through Rolle's grief and slowly Rolle pulled away; grief, agony, disbelief and shock all raged in his eyes.

"You?" Rolle extricated himself from Jack's hold and backed away, not looking at him. "Not an accident," he muttered. Rolle's breaths came in shuddering gasps and he turned away and ran, ran up the highway as hard and as fast as he could.

"Hey!" a cop reached futilely for him, seeing him covered in blood. "Hey, wait a minute!"

Jack watched him go in horror, knowing he just destroyed his best friend's life. He raised his fists to his eyes and folded over to his knees. He didn't want the concern that the paramedics tried to give him after he collapsed, but he didn't have the strength to fight them.

§∞•••∞§

**Going Thru the Motions**

It was raining. _ How typical_, he thought numbly,_ how perfectly stereotypical._ It wasn't pouring. It was just your average funeral rain and occasional thunder. This was Rolle's first reappearance since that fatal day. He'd disappeared. No one had seen him, heard from him... they didn't even know if he was alive or not. He didn't attend the memorial or the funeral for Gillian and Del, but he came to the cemetery for the graveside service.

Black pants, shoes, socks, a long black coat and black sunglasses that did very little to hide the bruises on his face. His dark apparel only made his snow-white bandages on his hands and the side of his face stand out in stark contrast. He walked stiffly, his aching limbs protesting their use and the foul weather.

The coat was useless. The rain had soaked him through already. It dripped from his hair down his neck and spread miserably through his shirt. But it was good to be miserable and it felt better to hide in the coat, hide behind his sunglasses on a day when the sun flat out refused to make an appearance. And it was perversely good that the sky cried for him, because he had no more tears to shed. He was dead inside, as dead as the cold shells of his love and friends in the cold wood and metal boxes that now held them.

"Rolland?" A sweet melodic voice, soft and magical, reached out to him. It could only be one person.

"Eithne," he said in a scratchy unused voice to greet his cousin. He even managed a small sad smile for her. When his parents died, she had been the only one in the family to stay in touch with him. Her friendship and her presence eased his heart through their loss, and now she was with him again.

She hugged him and sniffed, whispering words of apology and regret. "If there's anything I can do..." she offered sincerely.

He was quiet, biting back the bitter retort. _Don't be a damn stereotype!! Everybody says that, but there's nothing you can do so don't even say it!_ He hid everything behind his sunglasses, knowing that she'd see it clearly if he took them off. What happened to his walls? What happened to his defenses?

He couldn't speak. He knew the wrong thing would come out or the right thing would come out in the wrong tone. His mouth moved as if to say 'yeah, he understood,' but no sound came out so he nodded.

"I-I talked to Philly and... I'd really like to sing something, if that's okay with you!" she added quickly. "Jill was... well, she was really special to me and... and Del..." she floundered feeling like she was doing more harm than good.

"Thanks," he managed to say and sound sincere.

Eithne took his arm and led him to the small gathering of friends by the open graves. The others were already there: Philly, Jinx, Brigs... even Paden was there. _Connor must be doing better_, Rolle thought mechanically to himself. She wouldn't leave her twin's side if he wasn't true.

Brigs nudged Philly when he spotted Rolle making his way slowly over to them. Philly turned to look and a wave of relief washed over his face at seeing Rolle safe. Paden lifted her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. Rolle looked horrible despite how much he tried to hide in the cloth night he wrapped around himself. They could all see the emotional scars that cut deeper and bruised more than anything he'd received in the accident. They knew how devastated he must be. Rolle stopped in his tracks when he realized he'd gotten their attention, everything about him screamed that he didn't want them to notice him, that he just wanted to be a ghost for a little while longer. Brigs nodded and tucked Paden closer to him.

Jack was there, looking just as miserable and just as lost as Rolle did. And just as alone, too. Their shaded eyes met—Rolle's unemotional and dead, and Jack's shattered and regretful. His forehead sported a large white bandage that may have covered the abrasion, but did nothing to hide the ugly bruise beneath. Jack's gaze faltered and he looked away from what he thought must be an accusing glare from behind Rolle's dark glasses.

The minister began to speak. He read something from the bible, then spoke of tragedy, of youth full of promise, of love and music, of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings... and Rolle's mind drifted off. He remembered the first time he'd met Gill, the first time they played music together, composed together, made love together...

"Delmont Joseph Vanderhoff blah, blah, blah..." the minister said.

_He hates to be called Delmont_, Rolle thought to himself and finding himself face to face with a deep pang of guilt. _Del is dead, too. Del died, too, and all you can think about is Jill. _ He couldn't handle guilt on top of everything else, so his thoughts flowed numbly with whatever current possessed him. He thought about Del's name—Del Rio they called him sometimes. Philly was notorious for handing out nicknames to everyone. Del, Del Rio, Dill pickle, Deldo (an intentional slur)... Philly gave everyone a new name.

"Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Blah, blah, blah..."

And the caskets were lowered to their individual graves in unison. Was she really in there? It didn't matter, he supposed. She was dead. He saw her die. She was gone and nothing—no song, no tears, no prayers—would ever bring her back, her _or_ Del. She'd stay real for always, at least. She'd stay real in his heart and in his memories and in their songs. There was no one for him anymore; no one to love his fur off or be there when his eyes fell out and he got loose in the joints. There was no one to make him real anymore.

"Huh? What?"

"The flower, son," the minister repeated. "It's time to put the flower on the graves."

Rolle looked down at the tiny blooms in his hands, a wild violet and a dandelion. Mechanically, he walked with Paden to the edges of the deep holes and together they dropped their flowers.

As he stared down at the doomed blooms resting on the shiny lacquered wood, he glanced up and saw her name stamped in bronze on her marker above the dates that signified her brief encounter on this world. He'd called the monument company himself and insisted on adding a single line. 'It lasts for always.' As he looked down into the abysmal hole, his mouth said, I love you, even though his voice did not. He couldn't bring himself to say good-bye—not to her and not to Del. With weary feet, he stepped back to allow the others to come forward. Each of them filed by slowly and dropped small handfuls of dirt over the caskets as his cousn sang her song. He recognized the ancient Celtic song, slow and majestic and sad. Sporadic phrases penetrated his brain.

_Watching me, you know I cry ... Feel the sky fall down upon me ... All I am, a child with promises ... If only I could stay with you ... you're gone from view ... Now I must wait until it's over ... Days will pass, your words to me ... it seems so long; eternity ... but I must wait until it's over._

Rolle thought he had no more tears left in him. Maybe it wasn't even him. Maybe it was just the rain, but his heart sank a little lower even as it fluttered to stay alive. As much as his beloved cousin's words bruised his spirit, they still gave him some small amount of strength. All he had to do was wait until it was over: a bittersweet solution to the tatters of his life. He turned to leave quickly before anyone could stop him.

_I'll be with you soon_, he thought.


	17. Chapter 17 The Making, Part 2

_A/N: This final bonus chapter is the telling of the event and circumstances that created Rolle, and how he was "killed a second time" as he refers to it. So many of you have fallen in love with Rolle along the way and I wanted to thank you for your kind words for this lost soul._

_This is the last bonus installment and I wanted to thank everyone who has reviewed the story, sent me a PM, and everyone who made "Rolle yummm" sounds at me to make me grin. _

_Especially big thanks to LolaShoes, IrishGirl, TwilightSherry, Aciepey, , and __Jerzygirlz__. And a thanks to all the folks in the forum._

_**Reminder: I have been updating my profile to answer questions that readers have posed in their reviews. I have also created a banner for this story that you can link to there. You can help me share this story with others by posting the banner in your forum sigfile.**_

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**The Hunt**

The animal crouched low on all fours and ducked behind the forgotten body of a car to hide from the man. Its eyes were wide, dilated and predatory. The rusted and battered body of the car was half over-grown with weeds and bushes that sprouted up through what was once the engine compartment and trunk. The only paint on its sunburned body now was colorful graffiti. The animal's wild blue eyes darted around to make sure that the man was alone. A car passed overhead and made the bridge hum and rattle in perfect resonance, a deep thrumming that hung on the bridge like rolling thunder after the car passed. The animal used the noise to cover the sound of its movement as it stalked closer, intent upon its prey.

The man was dressed in jeans with a buttoned shirt and a sweat jacket. His familiar face, first seen at only a glance but forever burned in the animal's memory, turned a slow circle as if looking for something... or someone. That face and everything it represented to the animal was something to be hated and destroyed when the chance arose.

If only that chance would come. Perhaps then the animal could sleep. That was all it wanted, just to sleep. It longed for a dreamless sleep, a sleep without faces and cries of pain. It had been almost two weeks now since the man had first attacked the animal, and it had been just that long since the animal had slept. Beaten and battered, the predator could barely eat. Its wild and dazed mind hovered on the brink of madness. Undirected but patient fury waited for the moment when it could strike. It had followed the man here many times in the past. It had followed him almost everywhere, learning his habits, his routines, his routes — and soon all its efforts would come to fruition.

The man reached across his chest and under his jacket to pull out a gun. He ejected the magazine, checked the rounds and then slapped it back into place with a hard crack before pulling the barrel back, cocking the semi-automatic.

The animal had seen him do this before. A low growl of frustration hummed in the animal's chest as it settled down on the ground to wait patiently again.

It had been weeks since it had known sleep. Sleep brought dreams, horrible dreams. It was waking that brought the nightmares, though. The nightmares weren't about finding scraps in garbage cans. They weren't about drinking water from puddles on rooftops. Those were simply facts of life. The nightmares were always about Her.

Shadowed eyes followed the man's every move while another image scarred the animal's mind. Muscles tensed and quivered as he watched the man set the gun down and take off his coat. Its fast shallow breaths stopped altogether as the man began to relax. Noiselessly, it crept from the deep shadows to a better vantage point. Its hearing strained for any outside sound, anything that could interfere with the hunt. The smell of urine and alcohol saturated this place. Man had lived here. His odor was everywhere.

_This_ man took a step away from his weapon and the animal's pupils dilated, its entire body tensed to spring. Now was time. Weeks had passed, and now it would end. Just one more step...

Luck at last! The man took his step and bent to pick something up from the ground. Without a sound, the animal that had once been Rolle took a stride out from the shadow, then a second. The man reached out to touch the ground.

He leapt!

In a single bound, Rolle crossed several feet and soundlessly hit the man from behind. After weeks of silence, a hoarse guttural bellow erupted from unused voice. Blow upon vicious blow fell on the man. Nothing would stop the attack that rained down on the man now the fury had been released.

The man was wrestled onto his back as fists seem to fall from everywhere at once. It wasn't strength or weight that gave Rolle the advantage over the man. It was blind madness. It was rage and anguish and revenge that spurred him on. Every day since she had been taken from him, every hour he had wept at her loss, every second of nightfall since she was ripped from his life was culminated in his attack on the man responsible.

First skin broke under his knuckles, then cartilage. The man screamed in agony at the cracking sound from the bones in his face. He lurched and bucked violently throwing Rolle off. The man scrambled away groping blindly in the direction his gun. Rolle attacked again, lunging to catch him before he could get the weapon. Without leverage, they grappled in the dirt before breaking apart and circling each other. Rolle dove at him trying to catch him square in the stomach with his shoulder. The man brought his knee up, catching Rolle under the chin with a solid smack of teeth being cracked together. Rolle recoiled with the blow.

The man swiped at the blood in his eye, crying out as his own hand hit the broken cheek. He finally saw what it was that attacked him. Recognition seared across his face.

"Tylor!" he spat in disgust.

But it wasn't Rolle. It was a mindless fiend, dirty and unkempt and crazy with vengeance. Rolle launched himself at the hit man again. His rage and lack of sleep made him careless and the man used it against him. He side-stepped Rolle's attack and brought his elbow up into Rolle's face as he flew past, knocking him back and sending him reeling away again.

Hearing the sound of metal against leather, Rolle spun around just in time to see the man release the deadly edge. Rolle's hand flicked out like a serpent and plucked the knife from the air by the handle as easily as if he were picking it up from a kitchen counter. He flipped it gracefully in his hand, his fingers closing around the sharp point and hurled it back. He knew it would find its target. He didn't even wait to see it. Instead, Rolle dove for the man's gun and turned back, raising the weapon to take aim.

The man had both hands wrapped around the hilt of his own knife as it protruded from his stomach. He fell to his knees and Rolle rushed him again. With the man's gun in one hand, he reached for the knife with the other and gave it a violent twist forcing him prone to the ground.

For the first time, fear crept into the man's eyes as he beheld Rolle's crazed face and unfocused eyes. He was a terrifying specter, unshaved and dirty, reminiscent of a drug addict on a high. Rolle lowered the gun to the man's left eye; only it wasn't the man's face he saw, it was Del's. Rolle tipped his head curiously as he considered this. It was wrong. It needed to be fixed. Del didn't have a left eye anymore... and after a hell-shattering explosion, neither did the man.

It wasn't enough though. It was too easy. The man's death only served to fuel Rolle's rage again. He landed kick after kick into cracking ribs until his legs were too weak to keep him standing. When he fell to his knees beside the body he raised his fist, dropping hammering blows upon the bleeding face. Rolle's hands broke open as the skin was ripped wide from the pulverized cheekbones of the dead man. Fresh cracking noises began to come from his own fingers and only then did he stop, discovering a new way to kill the dead man. Rolle raised his elbow and used his body's weight to crash down on the killer's lifeless chest.

As he fell with the blow, he knocked the air from his lungs. With a _woosh_ and a grunt, Rolle finally stilled.

A silent moment passed as the rage left Rolle. The only sound was his own ragged breath. Realization of what he just did settled in. The man's mangled and cooling body rested heavily under him. He rolled off the corpse and stared at his beaten foe and at the other's blood on his hands.

Where Gillian had been in his heart, the pain of her loss had flooded to fill the gaping wound. That pain had fueled his rage, burning with such intensity that it had overwhelmed all other feelings, but now that his rage was spent, like a fog lifting, the crevasse of pain returned hallow and ragged in his chest. The rage had given him purpose, but now... now... With no focus and no reason, he sat dumbly next to his fallen foe with only one word on his lips.

...Murderer...

"Bravo," a smooth and thick accent floated to him on the stale air under the bridge. "Disordinato, ma approfondita."

Panting, Rolle looked around for the voice.

"Ah! Mi dispiace... I, uh, I am sorry," the accent said, finding a face to attach to. A pale face suddenly illuminated itself with the feeble glow of a distant streetlight. It seemed to float out to him shrouded in blackness.

"I forget. In America, you say... sloppy, but thorough."

The face glided closer to him.

"Impressive and persistent you were in your hunt. Multo buono... good," he corrected in English. He surveyed the carnage greedily. His eyes were bright red.

They turned slowly to fix on Rolle's dull stare. The stranger smiled wide.

"My name is Marcus. You have a gift my young friend. You would be very useful to me...."

§∞•••∞§

**To Live, To Die, To Die Again**

The fire had finally died.

The convulsions had finally stopped.

His ears were still ringing with the sound of his own screams.

He opened his eyes and instantly froze as he tried to understand what happened and why he was laying under an enormous slab of concrete. Rolle furrowed his brow as he stared at the concrete, confused and fascinated. The grains of sand and ash, the tiny pebbles, the crystals of salt, all stood out in stark relief from one another as if under a magnifying glass. He released a hard breath and immediately gasped as he watched the air curl and eddy around his expelled breath. A crushing sense of claustrophobia gripped him as he scrambled like an upside-down crab to crawl out from under the concrete tomb.

As he broke into the weak sun he blinked rapidly, trying to remember how he got here. Before he could register his surroundings, his other senses assaulted him. The particles of dust and pollen closed in on him bringing back the sense of being trapped. The world had suddenly become a deafening cacophony of cars, people, animals, rushing water, birds… he could even hear the insects. Rolle doubled over, crushing his eyes closed and clapping his hands to his ears as he dropped to his knees with a grimace. He gasped, trying to understand the strange foreign loss of… something… in his chest. With each breath, he tasted oil and salt in the air. The putrid smells of life around him made him gag and he fell forward, catching himself with one hand against the concrete slab he had crawled from.

His fingers curled through the concrete as if it were foam coating his hand in white powder. With a startled cry, he pushed himself away from the slab and cried out again when he realized he had launched himself thirty feet away.

"What's going on?" he shouted and staggered at the sound of his own, now unfamiliar, voice. His hand flew to his throat as his eyes flew around his surroundings seeing none of it.

With wild eyes he finally scanned the area around his feet: packed sand, wooden pilings, concrete stanchions. He raised his eyes: beach, ocean, dead fish, seaweed. He raised his eyes again, gasping now: shipping yard, warehouses, boxcars. He looked up, whimpering sounds breaking through his panting: freighters, cranes, cargo containers.

He began to panic, desperately trying to remember. He wrapped his arms around his chest, crushing himself close and forced himself to breathe evenly, concentrated on loosening his shoulders. Just as he was beginning to feel a sense of forced calm, he remembered a single word.

Her name.

The torrential flood of memories that poured into his mind brought him back to his knees with a piercing cry of agonized loss. Everything was gone: her eyes, her arms, her hair, his heart, his sanity, his morality, his life.

Another flood deluged him. He stole another man's life. He was a murderer. He had debased himself, dragged his body through mud and muck to kill… No, not just kill. He'd done more than simply kill that man. He mutilated him.

Rolle looked down at his hands remembering the feeling of his own bones breaking in his fingers, his own blood mixing with the blood of the man who killed his love. He looked closer at his own hands bringing them up to his face. They were no longer bloodied, bruised, and tanned. They were snow white and glistening like white sand on a tropical beach.

Scared, confused and drenched in the pain of her death, no one heard the sound of shattering glass. Wrathful, determined and numb, no one heard the rending of metal. Bereft, hallow and aimless, no one heard the breaking of bone.

Like a supernova burning itself out in sky, no one saw the light go out of his eyes, or heard his mind explode in the vacuum of his black memories. The shrapnel of his life scattered into eternity.

He knelt there staring at his hands and seeing nothing at all, a pale memorial to the void of his broken heart.

"Unitevi a me nel buio e io vi farà liberi," a velvet voice whispered from a hallow place in the world.

Rolle did not move and out of the void, what was left of his mind registered recognition. His body was slow to respond to the signals of his brain. The memory of that night cast a line into his abyss where he was adrift.

He raised his eyes to a pale face with chalky hair. That night the man had been nothing more than a flutter of white, black and blood red eyes that had descended upon him from hell. Now that flutter of a man stood as calm as a depthless pool, his eyes like haunted mirrors looking back at Rolle with profound understanding.

He came forward and rested his hand on Rolle's head, petting him like a child. He cupped Rolle's face in his hands, and tugged gently, urging him to his feet.

"Possiamo libera vicenda," he whispered, staring deeply into Rolle's eyes, before his grip tightened and Rolle's head was ripped from his body.

_"Unitevi a me nel buio e io vi farà liberi."  
["Join me in the dark, and I shall make you free."]_

_"Possiamo libera vicenda."  
["We can free each other."]_


	18. Chapter 18 FAQs

**Author's Notes and Responses to Reviews **(cuz it's for general consumption)

As an author, you measure your success by how many hit counts your stories get, how many people read your work, and how many people review it. Sometimes that's all you get.

Sometimes you get nominated at a fansite for a writing award or your story gets spotlighted, which in turn attracts even more readers. Because that's what it always comes down to. Getting folks to read your story.

The current recognition sites are...

http://www (dot) thecatt (dot) net  
http://theindietwificawards (dot) com  
http://fictionators (dot) blogspot (dot) com  
http://www (dot) twilightawards (dot) this-paradise (dot) com

***

**Chapter 1**

_"__I love that each family member has a different handshake__s" from __TwilightSherry_

I don't know where the Rolle-Greetings came from, I really don't. I just know he greeted Carlisle first and he was feeling sad. Then he greeted Esme, and she's so regal and dignified and reminds him of his own mother, so she was treated with something sweeter... and it all escalated from there because he's known the family for so long now (maybe not really WELL, but he's been a constant visitor) that he has a unique relationship with each of them. So each of them are treated differently.

***

**Chapter 1**

_"Where did you get the name Rolle?" from TwilightSherry_

Rolle is short for Rolland. I wanted him to have an old name, but different and something that could sound modern. You never learn his full name in this story, but he has one.

***

**Chapter 1**

_"__A vampire assassin__?" from __TwilightSherry_

As for the assassin bit... I always knew he was one; a reluctant one, perhaps, but definitely an assassin. I can't say why I knew that, but I did. The real trick was coming up with something plausible that would explain why it would unnerve vampires. That comes in later chapters. And your question "A hired assassin…for humans? For vampires? or both….to kill humans? To kill vampires?" is pretty much what Bella, herself, asks later, too. LOL

***

**Chapter 1**

_"__Edward gave out physically at seeing Rolle's mind at what I can only think was whatever happened to make him feel this amount of pain__y" from __TwilightSherry_

My point, however, was that I wanted Edward to see what it would be like to lose Bella without losing her, so Antithesis was going to be a "don't be like me" story. Edward saw everything in crystal iMax clarity as if he were right there with Rolle, watching his true love die, barely even able to touch her... just desperately grasping the ends of her fingertips and seeing the light in her eyes simply disappear behind her tear-stained and bloodied face. The shock of it, and the reality of it, was rather like a baseball bat slamming down onto his head. So "Edward gave out physically." He literally crumples to the floor. He didn't need to have Jasper's gift of feeling that pain himself. He could well imagine it.

I'd love to do JsPOV of those few minutes. Maybe I will. Hmmm...

But this is a Bella and Edward story, not a Rolle story. More things will come out about him, but all from BPOV so she has to be around him to get that information. Conveniently, since Rolle came to visit Edward, and Edward is always with Bella, it works to my advantage, and yours!

***

**Chapter 2**

_"I'm totally a Rolle fan. Who plays him in your movie?" by __LolaShoes_

Funny you should ask that. It's Sting, actually! Well, a very young version of Sting, and even more oddly, a very specific picture I have of Sting.

***

**Chapter 2**

_"__I'm dying to see Rolle's reaction when he finds out that Edward leaves Bella [in New Moon]__" from __TwilightSherry_

Rolle is not told that Edward left Bella. If he found out, he'd kick Edward's butt! So I'm employing creative license to ensure Rolle never finds out. Now that Bella and Edward are married, though, Rolle would probably just chew him out for leaving her, and glower. A lot.

***

**Chapter 2**

_"About the vampire who changed Rolle ... was that purely because of his capability as a human to murder would only be stronger as a vampire, or because turning him into a vampire while he was in this state of mind would keep him in this state of mind?" from __TwilightSherry_

Yes to both, and more. Marcus changed Rolle because he was a natural Tracker as a human -- a trait that would only blossom as a vampire. The fact that Rolle had a sadistic streak for vendetta (a very Italian trait) only made him even more desirable. When Rolle said he murdered the man again and again and again, what he was glossing over was that he basically mutilated the dead body because he couldn't stop himself from killing that man even after he was dead. Marcus liked that about him. He liked Rolle's focused brutality. Marcus simply could not take into account Rolle's intense guilt for committing murder.

***

**Chapter 2**

_"Were they [the Cullens] stunned only because of the comment he made about her Bella's smell? Or was it because he was so close to her? Or was it because he had just rearranged the furniture??" from __TwilightSherry_

All of the above. Rolle didn't think before he acted, and suddenly Bella was in his arms! The Tracker! The Killer! And she smelled good to him!

***

_**Chapter 4**_

_"Why didn't Rolle didn't keep his promise to help protect Bella?" from __Jen2112_

Oh, he does keep his promise. That's coming! Think of it like this... You don't use a bomb to settle a disagreement. You have to use the right tool for the job. The things Bella has had to go through were not big enough to play the trump card.

***

**Chapter 7**

_"__The one thing that I could critique was the sudden shift to after Breaking Daw__n" from __aragornnme_

So I started writing this before I got through all four books, which is why there is a time jump from Twilight (the first 3 chapters) and BD (the rest of my story) because, frankly, Rolle would have kicked the crap out of Edward for leaving Bella like he did in NM. I even have their argument in my head when Rolle tracks him down to confront him. It's pretty vicious. But then I read the next three books so quickly, and I really hate messing with canon, that I decided to play the "vampire time-warp" card. Rolle went away, time passed and whups, it's years later!

***

_**Chapter 12**_

_"I dunno if I agree with making Bella the catalyst, she already feels guilty over the Volturi after the 'Nessie visit'" from __Noble Korhedron_

I'm slightly AU on Renessme. She's not included here because I didn't think I could do her justice since we learned so little about her in BD. Yes, I should have said the Volturi visit, but not because of Renessme. They were going to come regardless, to make sure Edward and Alice followed through on their promise that Bella would be changed. They still came to Forks like in BD, but without such a spectacle over it.

I did, however, write a scene where Rolle shows up with Bella still pregnant, and dying. Maybe I'll bonus-chapter it for you at the end of "Antithesis". I am planning on posting the songs Rolle played for the Cullens that night in Forks. Just the RL songs and artists, as well as the lyrics to the one song that _**is**_ Rolle inside and out.

***

**Chapter 13**

_"I guess Aro has to stay far far from Edward, Bella and Alice, lest he discover the secret" by __aciepey_

That's a good observation and I have thought about that... But whether I follow SM's canon or the AU by LolaShoes, I think Bella's gift has them covered. Because everybody would really NEED Aro to not find out the truth.

***

**Chapter 13**

_"I would love an out-take of Rolle as he starts being the tracker for the Guard." by __Aggie94_

Wow! That's incredibly flattering. I'm totally stunned by how many people have called themselves 'Rolle Fans' but really, this story has always been about Edward and Bella. I'm not sure what the story would look like without them. I'll ponder it. One of the bonus chapters, though, will be Gillian, the accident and the night Marcus finds Rolle.

***

**Private Message**

_"Why did you pick this as a title for a story?" by __caww_

The story title is defined by the meaning of the word itself: a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else. Rolle's story is the direct opposite of Edward's. That's about it. I wanted to be able to explore the loss of a true-love, without putting Edward through it. I wanted the story to be about Edward and Bella, and the importance of keeping and protecting something that is true and good.


End file.
